The works of the right honourable Edmund Burke

JUNIV. OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELA

TTbe World's Classics

cxn

BURKE'S WRITINGS AND
SPEECHES.— IV

THE
WORKS OF

EDMUND BURKE

_

THE WORKS

OF

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

EDMUND BURKE

VOL. IV

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

F. W. RAFFETY

HENRY FROWDE

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONDON, NEW YORK AND TORONTO

EDMUND BUBKB

Born, Dublin 1728

Died, Beaconsfield .... July 8, 1797

The contents of the present volume were written by Burke
in the years 1790 and 1791. In ' The World's Classics '
they were first published in 1907.

OXFORD: HORACE HART
I'HINTKR TO THE UN1VEKSITY

STACK ANNEX

PAGE

Preface vii-xiii

Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790 . 1

A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly,

1791 277

Thoughts on French Affairs, 1791 . . . 323

PREFACE

THE present volume contains publications of Burke
relating entirely to the Revolution in France. Glad-
stone thought Burke was a tripartite man ; America,
France, Ireland — ' right as to two, wrong in one.'

We have now to consider Burke in regard to that
one great cause to which he gave himself where the
verdict of history has been declared against him.
And yet, again it must be pointed out that his cardinal
error detracts in no way from the value of these pieces.
Though the special issue is misleading, as Mr. Morley
says of the Reflections, ' It lives because it contains
a sentiment, a method, a set of informal principles,
which, awakened into new life after the Revolution,
rapidly transformed the current ways of thinking and
feeling about all the most serious objects of our atten-
tion, and have powerfully helped to give a richer
substance to all modern literature ' ; and again, he
says, ' the book is like some temple by whose structure
and design we allow ourselves to be impressed, without
being careful to measure the precise truth or fitness
of the worship to which it was consecrated by its first
founders.'

In all Burke's works, but in regard especially to his
Writings on French Affairs, readers are constantly
forced to feel with Hazlitt that, if in arriving at one
error he discovered a hundred truths, they would con-
sider themselves a hundred times more indebted to him
than if in stumbling upon what they considered as the
right side of the question he had committed a hundred
absurdities in striving to establish his point. In the
' hundred truths ' delivered by the way will be found
the chief glory of these pieces to the present generation.

It must be remembered that at the time of the publi-

viii BURKE'S WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

cation of the Reflections, November, 1790, though there
had been great and violent changes in France, such as
were sure to shock the keen sensibility of Burke, they
were such as gave hope to those who knew the errors
of the old system better.

There was, indeed, at that time amongst the best
statesmen in France every expectation of the settle-
ment of a Constitutional Government. These expec-
tations continued till the death of Mirabeau in April,
1791. The King himself had acquiesced; though the
more truculent nobles, from a safe distance, continued
to urge him and foreign nations to accept nothing
but a complete restoration of the old order.

The States General, after being in abeyance since
1614, had met on May 5, 1789; and the Bastille was
stormed on July 14. But nothing more revolutionary
had as yet taken place. Danton and Robespierre were
unknown, and there had been no talk of a republic.
Wordsworth and his sister and Coleridge landed at
Calais on their tour through France and Italy, on
July 13, 1790, the eve of the day on which Louis XVI
swore fidelity to the new constitution; Wordsworth
continuing long after to exult in the Revolution —

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven !

It was before the end of this year that Burke burst forth,
angered by the fact that at a meeting of the Revolution
Society — a society which commemorated our own peace-
ful revolution of 1688 — sentiments of appreciation had
been expressed. Dr. Price's sermon certainly contained
expressions not generally acquiesced in. But all
Burke's previous political associates were looking
across the water with hopeful admiration ; and it is
impossible to form any other conclusion than that his
love of order and reverence for settled - government,
with an insufficient knowledge of the true state of
affairs, led him lamentably astray.

How far Burke must be held accountable for what
followed it is impossible to say ; but certain it is that

PREFACE ix

the effect of his intervention was electric. Within six
days, 7,000 copies of the Reflections had been sold ;
during the first year it was estimated that 19,000 copies
had been sold in England and 13,000 in France.
Louis XVI is said to have translated it himself, a
service which he had in calmer times rendered to some
of the early chapters of Gibbon's Decline and Fall,

Burke at once became estranged from his old political
friends — the later scene in the House when he renounced
the friendship of Sheridan and Fox being ever memor-
able. But there rallied to him all those who had been
opposed to him throughout his life.who now gladly took
up the finest weapon that had ever been put into the
hands of a party of reaction and privilege. There came
back also to idolize him once more one who had been
alienated by his prosecution of Warren Hastings —
Frances Burney, authoress of Evelina. Edward Gibbon,
the greatest of historians, but hardly what we should
call an enlightened politician, applauded from his retreat
at Lausanne — ' I admire his eloquence, I approve his
politics, I adore his chivalry, and I can forgive even his
superstition.' As regards French affairs, however,
though happily not as regards all others, we lose Burke
as the champion of distressed nationalities ; no longer
do we hear of ' presumptions in favour of the people,'
or of the lack of ability to ' draw up indictments against
a whole people.' And yet it was the same Burke.
Calmer studerfts have been able to notice his consis-
tency, which was very far from being apparent to that
generation. If only his facts had been correct ! ' I
flatter myself that I love a manly, moral, regulated
liberty as well as any gentleman of that (Revolution)
society ' (p. 7) ; here is an echo of the pro- American
speeches. He is misled by a false analogy to the
English Revolution, and ' never desires to be thought
a better Whig than Lord Somers.'

But when Burke says that in France he does not discern
the character of a government that has been, on the
whole, ' so oppressive, or so corrupt, or so negligent, as
to be utterly unfit for all reformation ' ; and thinks it

r BURKE'S WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

was a government well deserving to ' have its excellen-
cies heightened, its faults corrected, and its capacities
improved to a British constitution,' we feel how little
Burke could have appreciated the enormous burdens that
had for centuries been laid upon that people. Again, could
he have understood anything of the general and local
laws and privileges when he regards the outcry against
the nobility as a 'mere work of art'! His remarks on
the clergy are equally unwarranted by the general facts.
It was nearly forty years before that Lord Chester-
field— a better statesman than his epistolary reputation
has permitted us to suppose — had written from Paris :
' In short, all the symptoms which I have ever met with
in history previous to great changes and revolutions in
government, now exist and daily increase in France.1

Arthur Young was one who regarded Burke as ' the
greatest genius of the age.' He was pursuing his
investigations in France at the very time of the out-
break of the Revolution, and published his Travels in
France eighteen months after Burke's Reflections. He
had added a chapter on the Revolution, which contains
the sober judgment of one of the few Englishmen at
that time competent to express an opinion on the
social conditions of France. It might have been Burke
at his best when he says : ' It is impossible to justify
the excesses of the people . . . But is it really the
people to whom we are to impute the, whole ? or to
their oppressors who had kept them so long in a state of
bondage ? ' Every newspaper recalled the murder of a
seigneur ; but on the other side the sufferers were too
ignoble to be known ; and the mass too indiscriminate
to be pitied. The most convincing answer to Burke's
theory of gradual improvement ' to a British consti-
tution ' is given by Young : ' The true judgment to
be formed of the French Revolution must surely be
gained from an attentive consideration" of the evils of
the old government ; when these are well understood —
and when the extent and universality of the oppression
under which the people groaned — oppression which
bore upon them from every quarter, it will scarcely be

PREFACE xi

attempted to be urged that a revolution was not
absolutely necessary to the welfare of the kingdom.'
Under the horror of later excesses, Young retracted his
views ; but the evidence of the eye-witness, given at
the time, remains.

Something of the same kind happened to Sir James
Mackintosh, whose immediate opinions prompted the
Vindiciae Gallicae, a forcible and reasoned reply to
Burke's Reflections. Thomas Paine was more uncom-
promising in the celebrated Rights of Man.

The rapturous passage about Marie Antoinette and
the age of chivalry which Sir Philip Francis had
candidly told Burke, much to his vexation, was pure
foppery, but which Horace Walpole approved from his
own experience, was effectively disposed of by Paine :
were men to weep over the plumage and forget the
dying bird ?

Lamentable as were the extremes to which Burke
allowed himself to go in the Reflections, and still more
in the later writings on France, the truth of his pro-
phetic utterances is amazing. The French constitution
certainly did not remain where it was, but indeed
passed ' through great varieties of untried being ' which
would have surprised even him. But the most amazing
prophecy of all was surely that where Burke points to a
military domination — ' until some popular general, who
understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and
who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw
the eyes of all men upon himself.' (p. 243.)

Here, again, it is possible to point to numerous
maxims and phrases that have passed into the permanent
currency of public life. The writer, who was destined
to exercise a potent influence alike over Disraeli and
Gladstone, affords every thoughtful student of affairs
a constant refreshment of great ideas, and noble lan-
guage in which to clothe his own poorer conceptions.
How often have we heard the appeal to ' men of light
and leading ' ; even now there are those who feel that
* politics and the pulpit are terms that have little
agreement.' (p. 12.)

xii BURKE'S WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

Those who believe in public service broadening out
from ' the duty which lies nearest ' gladly remember
that ' to love the little platoon we belong to in society,
is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affec-
tions ' (p. 50) ; and that ' no cold relation is a zealous
citizen.' (p. 218.)

' The temple of honour ought to be seated on an
eminence ' (p. 55), is a warning appreciated by those
who resent ' pushfulness ' in public life. In an age
of much greater opportunity for expression of individual
opinion the wise exhortation to sift and reject may be
even more needed : ' Because half a dozen grasshoppers
under a fern make the field ring with their importunate
chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath
the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are
silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the
noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that, of course,
they are many in number ; or that, after all, they are
other than the little, shrivelled, meagre, hopping,
though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour.'
(p. 93.)

' A disposition to preserve and an ability to improve,
taken together, would be my standard of the statesman '
(p. 174), has long afforded a definition of philosophic
conservatism. Of more general acceptance is that
comforting reminder that ' Difficulty is a severe
instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of
a parental guardian and legislator, who knows us better
than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too . . .
Our antagonist is our helper.' (p. 184.)

' Every politician ought to sacrifice to the graces ;
and to join compliance with reason ' (p. 272), says
Burke ; and surely, for these aphorisms and the many
more like them which might be pointed out in this
volume alone, those who have evef experienced the
aridity of ordinary public speech and the unoriginality
of public conduct, ought to be fervently grateful.

The Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, in
reference to some objections to some points raised in
the Reflections, finds Burke considerably advanced even

PREFACE xiii

in the two or three months which had elapsed. He
now hopes for foreign intervention, and, if a foreign
prince enters France to punish the guilty, civilized war
will not be practised, nor are the French who act on
the present system entitled to expect it ! (p. 205.)

The most notable literary features of this piece are
the tribute to Cromwell for appointing Sir Matthew
Hale Chief Justice, and the invective against Rousseau,
' the great professor and founder of the philosophy of
Vanity.'

The Thoughts on French Affairs appeared at the end
of 1791, and shows Burke still further committed to his
views of the imminent danger of suffering the con-
tinuance of the French system. He examines the
French doctrines from the aspect of Europe ; and as a
deliberate conviction he would repeat over and over
again that the state of France is the first consideration
in the politics of Europe, and of each state, externally
and internally concerned.

Having declared the evil as in his opinion it exists, at
the conclusion he says, however, that the remedy must
be ' where power, wisdom, and information, I hope, are
more united with good intentions than they can be
with me,' and he thinks he has done with the subject
for ever.

That Burke had something still to say on French
affairs will be seen in a later volume.

F. W. RAFFETY.

•REFLECTIONS

ON THE

REVOLUTION IN FRANCE,

AND ON

THE PROCEEDINGS IN CERTAIN SOCIETIES
IN LONDON

RELATIVE TO THAT EVENT:

IN A LETTER

INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SENT TO A
GENTLEMAN IN PARIS

1790

BURKE. IV

IT may not be unnecessary to inform the reader, that
the following Reflections had their origin in a corre-
spondence between the Author and a very young gentle-
man at Paris, who did him the honour of desiring his
opinion upon the important transactions which then,
and have ever since, so much occupied the attention
of all men. An answer was written some time in the
month of October, 1789 ; but it was kept back upon
prudential considerations. That letter is alluded to in
the beginning of the following sheets. It has been
since forwarded to the person to whom it was addressed.
The reasons for the delay in sending it were assigned
in a short letter to the same gentleman. This produced
on his part a new and pressing application for the
Author's sentiments.

The Author began a second and more full discussion
on the subject. This he had some thoughts of publish-
ing early in the last spring ; but, the matter gaining
upon him, he found that what he had undertaken not
only far exceeded the measure of a letter, but that its
importance required rather a more detailed considera-
tion than at that time he had any leisure to bestow
upon it. However, having thrown down his first
thoughts in the form of a letter, and, indeed, when he
sat down to write, having intended it for a private
letter, he found it difficult to change the form of address,
when his sentiments had grown into a greater extent,
and had received another direction. A different plan,
he is sensible, might be more favourable to a commo-
dious division and distribution of his matter.

REFLECTIONS

ON THB

REVOLUTION IN FRANCE

1790

DEAR SIR,

You are pleased to call again, and with some
earnestness, for my thoughts on the late proceedings
in France. I will not give you reason to imagine that
I think my sentiments of such value as to wish myself
to be solicited about them. They are of too little con-
sequence to be very anxiously either communicated or
withheld. It was from attention to you, and to you
only, that I hesitated at the time when you first desired
to receive them. In the first letter I had the honour
to write to you, and which at length I send, I wrote
neither for, nor from, any description of men ; nor shall
I in this. My errors, if any, are my own. My reputa-
tion alone is to answer for them.

You see, sir, by the long letter I have transmitted
to you, that though I do most heartily wish that France
may be animated by a spirit of rational liberty, and that
I ihink you bound, in all honest policy, to provide a
permanent body in which that spirit may reside, and
an effectual organ by which it may act, it is my mis-
fortune to entertain great doubts concerning several
material points in your late transactions.

You imagined, when you wrote last, that I might
possibly be reckoned among the approvers of certain
proceedings in France, from the solemn public seal of
sanction they have received from two clubs of gentle-

4 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

men in London, called the Constitutional Society, and
the Revolution Society.

I certainly have the honour to belong to more clubs
than one, in which the constitution of this kingdom,
and the principles of the glorious Revolution, are held
hi high reverence ; and I reckon myself among the most
forward in my zeal for maintaining that constitution
and those principles in their utmost purity and vigour.
It is because I do so that I think it necessary for me
that there should be no mistake. Those who cultivate
the memory of our Revolution, and those who are
attached to the constitution of this kingdom, will take
good care how they are involved with persons who,
under the pretext of zeal towards the Revolution and
constitution, too frequently wander from their true
principles ; and are ready on every occasion to depart
from the firm but cautious and deliberate spirit which
produced the one, and which presides in the other.
Before I proceed to answer the more material parti-
culars in your letter, I shall beg leave to give you such
information as I have been able to obtain of the two
clubs which have thought proper, as bodies, to interfere
in the concerns of France ; first assuring you, that I am
not, and that I have never been, a member of either
of those societies.

The first, calling-itself the Constitutional Society, or
Society for Constitutional Information, or by some
such title, is, I believe, of seven or eight years' standing.
The institution of this society appears to be of a charit-
able, and so far of a laudable, nature : it was intended
for the circulation, at the expense of the members, of
many books, which few others would be at the expense
of buying ; and which might he on the hands of the
booksellers, to the great loss of an. useful body of men.
Whether the books, so charitably circulated, were ever
as charitably read, is more than I know. Possibly
several of them have been exported to France ; and,
like goods not in request here, may with you have found
a market. I have heard much talk of the lights to be
drawn from books that are sent from hence. What

TWO ENGLISH CLUBS 5

improvements they have had in their passage (as it is
said some liquors are meliorated by crossing the sea)
I cannot tell : but I never heard a man of common
judgment, or the last degree of information, speak a
word in praise of the greater part of the publications
circulated by that society ; nor have their proceedings
been accounted, except by some of themselves, as of
any serious consequence.

Your National Assembly seems to entertain much
the same opinion that I do of this poor charitable club.
As a nation, you reserved the whole stock of your
eloquent acknowledgments for the Revolution Society ;
when their fellows in the Constitutional were, in equity,
entitled to some share. Since you have selected the
Revolution Society as the great object of your national
thanks and praises, you will think me excusable in
making its late conduct the subject of my observations.
The National Assembly of France has given importance
to these gentlemen by adopting them : and they return
the favour, by acting as a committee in England for
extending the principles of the National Assembly.
Henceforward we must consider them as a kind of
privileged persons : as no inconsiderable members in
the diplomatic body. This is one among the revolu-
tions which have given splendour to obscurity, and
distinction to undiscerned merit. Until very lately
1 do not recollect to have heard of this club. L
am quite sure that it never occupied a moment of
my thoughts : nor, I believe, those of any person out
of their own set. I fiid, upon inquiry, that on the
anniversary of the Revolution in 16S8, a club of dis-
senters, but of what djnomination I know not, have
long had the custom of hearing a sermon in one of their
churches ; and that afterwards they spent the day
cheerfully, as other clubs do, at the tavern. But I
never heard that any public measure, or political system,
much less that the merits of the constitution of any
foreign nation, had been the subject of a formal pro-
ceeding at their festivals ; until, to my inexpressible
surprise, I found them in a sort of public capacity, by

6 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

a congratulatory address, giving an authoritative sanc-
tion to the proceedings of the National Assembly in
France.

In the ancient principles and conduct of the club,
so far at least as they were declared, I see nothing to
which I could take exception. I think it very probable
that, for some purpose, new members may have entered
among them ; and that some truly Christian politi-
cians, who love to dispense benefits, but are careful to
conceal the hand which distributes the dole, may have
made them the instruments of their pious designs.
Whatever I may have reason to suspect concerning
private management, I shall speak of nothing as of a
certainty but what is public.

For one, I should be sorry to be thought, directly or
indirectly, concerned in their proceedings. I certainly
take my full share, along with the rest of the world, in
my individual and private capacity, in speculating on
what has been done, or is doing, on the public stage, in
any place ancient or modern ; in the republic of Rome,
or the republic of Paris ; but having no general apostoli-
cal mission, being a citizen of a particular state, and
being bound up, in a considerable degree, by its public
will, I should think it at least improper and irregular
for me to open a formal public correspondence with the
actual government of a foreign nation, without the ex-
press authority of the government under which I live.

I should be still more unwilling to enter into that
correspondence under anything like an equivocal de-
scription which to many, unacquainted with our usages,
might make the address, in which. I joined, appear as
the act of persons in some sort of corporate capacity,
acknowledged by the laws of this kingdom, and au-
thorized to speak the sense of some part of it. On
account of the ambiguity and uncertainty of unau-
thorized general descriptions, and of the deceit which
may be practised under them, and not from mere for-
mality, the House of Commons would reject the most
sneaking petition for the most trifling object, under
that mode of signature to which you have thrown open

MANLY, MORAL, REGULATED LIBERTY 7

the folding doors of your presence chamber, and have
ushered into your National Assembly with as much
ceremony and parade, and with as great a bustle of
applause, as if you had been visited by the whole re-
presentative majesty of the whole English nation. If
what this society has thought proper to send forth had
been a piece of argument, it would have signified little
whose argument it was. It would be neither the more
nor the less convincing on account of the party it came
from. But this is only a vote and resolution. It stands
solely on authority ; and in this case it is the mere
authority of individuals, few of whom appear. Their
signatures ought, in my opinion, to have been annexed
to their instrument. The world would then have the
means of knowing how many they are ; who they are ;
and of what value their opinions may be, from their per-
sonal abilities, from their knowledge, their experience, or
their lead and authority in this state. To me, who am
but a plain man, the proceeding looks a little too re-
fined, and too ingenious ; it has too much the air of a
political stratagem, adopted for the sake of giving,
under a high-sounding name, an importance to the
public declarations of this club, which, when the matter
came to be closely inspected, they did not altogether
so well deserve. It is a policy that has very much the
complexion of a fraud.

I flatter myself that I love a manly, moral, regulated
liberty as well as any gentleman of that society, be he
who he will : and perhaps I have given as good proofs
of my attachment to that cause, in the whole course of
my public conduct. I think I envy liberty as little as
they do, to any other nation. But I cannot stand for-
ward, and give praise or blame to anything which re-
lates to human actions, and human concerns, on a
simple view of the object, as it stands stripped of every
relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of meta-
physical abstraction. Circumstances (which with some
gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every
political principle its distinguishing colour and dis-
criminating effect. The circumstances are what render

8 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious
to mankind. Abstractedly speaking, government, as
well as liberty, is good ; yet could I, in common sense,
ten years ago, have felicitated France on her enjoyment
of a government (for she then had a government) with-
out inquiry what the nature of that government was,
or how it was administered ? Can I now congratulate
the same nation upon its freedom ? Is it because
liberty in the abstract may be classed amongst the
blessings of mankind, that I am seriously to felicitate
a madman, who has escaped from the protecting re-
straint and wholesome darkness of his cell, on his
restoration to the enjoyment of light and liberty ? Am
I to congratulate a highwayman and murderer, who
has broke prison, upon the recovery of his natural
rights ? This would be to act over again the scene of
the criminals condemned to the gallows, and their
heroic deliverer, the metaphysic knight of the sorrowful
countenance.

When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a
strong principle at work ; and this, for a while, is all
I can possibly know of it. The wild gas, the fixed air,
is plainly broke loose : but we ought to suspend our
judgment until the first effervescence is a little sub-
sided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see some-
thing deeper than the agitation of a troubled and frothy
surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I venture
publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they
have really received one. Flattery corrupts both the
receiver and the giver ; and adulation is not of more
service to the people than to kings. I should therefore
suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of France,
until I was informed how it had been combined with
government ; with public force ; with the discipline
and obedience of armies ; with the collection of an
effective and well-distributed revenue ; with morality
and religion ; with solidity and property ; with peace
and order ; with civil and social manners. All these
(in their way) are good things too ; and, without them,
liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not likely

THE REVOLUTION SOCIETY 9

to continue long. The effect of liberty to individuals,
is, that they may do what they please : we ought to
see what it will please them to do, before we risk con-
gratulations, which may be soon turned into complaints.
Prudence would dictate this in the case of separate,
insulated, private men ; but liberty, when men act in
bodies, is power. Considerate people, before they de-
clare themselves, will observe the use which is made of
power ; and particularly of so trying a thing as new
power in new persons, of whose principles, tempers, and
dispositions, they have little or no experience, and in
situations, where those who appear the most stirring
in the scene may possibly not be the real movers.

All these considerations, however, were below the
transcendental dignity of the Revolution Society.
'Whilst I continued in the country, from whence I had
the honour of writing to you, I had but an imperfect
idea of their transactions. On my coming to town,
I sent for an account of their proceedings, which had
been published by their authority, containing a sermon
of Dr. Price, with the Duke de Rochefoucault's and
the Archbishop of Aix's letter, and several other docu-
ments annexed. The whole of that publication, with
the manifest design of connecting the affairs of France
with those of England, by drawing us into an imitation
of the conduct of the National Assembly, gave me a con-
siderable degree of uneasiness. The effect of that con-
duct upon the power, credit, prosperity, and tranquillity
of France, became every day more evident. The form
of constitution to be settled, for its future polity,
became more clear. We are now in a condition to dis-
cern, with tolerable exactness, the true nature of the
object held up to our imitation. If the prudence of
reserve and decorum dictates silence in some circum-
stances, in others prudence of a higher order may
justify us in speaking our thoughts. The beginnings
of confusion with us in England are at present feeble
enough ; but, with you, we have seen an infancy, still
more feeble, growing by moments into a strength to
heap mountains upon mountains, and to wage war

10 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

with heaven itself. Whenever our neighbour's house
is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a
little on our own. Better to be despised for too
anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident
a security.

Solicitous chiefly for the peace of my own country,
but by no means unconcerned for yours, I wish to com-
municate more largely what was at first intended only
for your private satisfaction. I shall still keep your
affairs in my eye, and continue to address myself to
you. Indulging myself in the freedom of epistolary
intercourse, I beg leave to throw out my thoughts, and
express my feelings, just as they arise in my mind, with
very little attention to formal method. I set out with
the proceedings of the Revolution Society ; but I shall
not confine myself to them. Is it possible I should ?
It appears to me as if I were in a great crisis, not of the
affairs of France alone, but, of all Europe, perhaps of
more than Europe. All circumstances taken together,
the French Revolution is the most astonishing that has
hitherto happened in the world. The most wonderful
things are brought about in many instances by means
the most absurb and ridiculous ; in the most ridiculous
modes ; and, apparently, by the most contemptible
instruments. Everything seems out of nature in this
strange chaos of levity and ferocity, and of all sorts of
crimes jumbled together with all sorts of follies. In
viewing this monstrous tragi-comic scene, the most
opposite passions necessarily succeed, and sometimes
mix with each other in the mind ; alternate contempt
and indignation ; alternate laughter and tears ; alter-
nate scorn and horror.

It cannot however be denied, that to some this
strange scene appeared in quite another point of view.
Into them it inspired no other sentiments than those
of exultation and rapture. They saw nothing in what
has been done in France, but a firm and temperate
exertion of freedom ; so consistent, on the whole, with
morals and piety, as to make it deserving not only of
the secular applause of dashing Machiavelian politi-

A GREAT CRISIS IN EUROPE 11

cians, but to render it a fit theme for all the devout
effusions of sacred eloquence.

On the forenoon of the 4th of November last, Doctor
Richard Price, a non-conforming minister of eminence,
preached at the dissenting meeting-house of the Old
Jewry, to his club or society, a very extraordinary
miscellaneous sermon, in which there are some good
moral and religious sentiments, and not ill expressed,
mixed up with a sort of porridge of various political
opinions and reflections : but the Revolution in France
is the grand ingredient in the cauldron. I consider
the address transmitted by the Revolution Society
to the National Assembly, through Earl Stanhope, as
originating in the principles of the sermon, and as
a corollary from them. It was moved by the preacher
of that discourse. It was passed by those who came
reeking from the effect of the sermon, without any
censure or qualification, expressed or implied. If, how-
ever, any of the gentlemen concerned shall wish to
separate the sermon from the resolution, they know
how to acknowledge the one, and to disavow the other.
They may do it : I cannot.

For my part, I looked on that sermon as the public
declaration of a man much connected with literary
caballers, and intriguing philosophers ; with political
theologians, and theological politicians, both at home
and abroad. I know they set him up as a sort of
oracle ; because, with the best intentions in the world,
he naturally philippizes, and chants his prophetic song
in exact unison with their designs.

That sermon is in a strain which I believe has not
been heard in this kingdom, in any of the pulpits which
are tolerated or encouraged in it, since the year 1648 ;
when a predecessor of Dr. Price, the Reverend Hugh
Peters, made the vault of the king's own chapel at
St. James's ring with the honour and privilege of the
saints, who, with the ' high praises of God in their
mouths, and a <u>o-edged sword in their hands, were to
execute judgment on the heathen, and punishments
upon the people ; to bind their kings with chains, and

12 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

their nobles with fetters of iron V Few harangues
from the pulpit, except in the days of your league in
France, or in the days of our solemn league and cove-
nant in England, have ever breathed less of the spirit
of moderation than this lecture in the Old Jewry.
Supposing, however, that something like moderation
were visible in this political sermon ; yet politics and
the pulpit are terms that have little agreement. No
sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing
voice of Christian charity. The cause of civil liberty
and civil government gains as little as that of religion
by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their
proper character, to assume what does not belong to
them, are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the
character they leave, and of the character they assume.
Wholly unacquainted with the world in which they are
so fond of meddling, and inexperienced in all its affairs,
on which they pronounce with so much confidence, they
have nothing of politics but the passions they excite.
Surely the church is a place where one day's truce
ought to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities
of mankind.

This pulpit style, revived after so long a discontinu-
ance, had to me the air of novelty, and of a novelty not
wholly without danger. I do not charge this danger
equally to every part of the discourse. The hint given
to a noble and reverend lay-divine, who is supposed
high in office in one of our universities 2, and other lay-
divines ' of rank and literature,' may be proper and
seasonable, though somewhat new. If the noble
Seekers should find nothing to satisfy their pious fancies
in the old staple of the national church, or in all the
rich variety to be found in the well-assorted warehouses
of the dissenting congregations, Dr. Price advises them
to improve upon non-conformity ; and to set up, each
of them, a separate meeting-house upon his own par-

1 Ps. cxlix.

a ' Discourse on the Love of our Country,' Nov. 4, 1789,
by Dr. Richard Price, 3rd edition, pp. 17 and 18.

POLITICS AND THE PULPIT 13

ticular principles 1. It is somewhat remarkable that
this reverend divine should be so earnest for setting up
new churches, and so perfectly indifferent concerning
the doctrine which may be taught in them. His zeal
is of a curious character. It is not for the propagation
of his own opinions, but of any opinions. It is not for
the diffusion of truth, but for the spreading of contra-
diction. Let the noble teachers but dissent, it is no
matter from whom or from what. This great point
once secured, it is taken for granted their religion will
be rational and manly. I doubt whether religion
would reap all the benefits which the calculating
divine computes from this ' great company of great
preachers.' It would certainly be a valuable addition
of nondescripts to the ample collection of known classes,
genera and species, which at present beautify the
hortus siccus of dissent. A sermon from a noble duke,
or a noble marquis, or a noble earl, or baron bold, would
certainly increase and diversify the amusements of this
town, which begins to grow satiated with the uniform
round of its vapid dissipations. I should only stipulate
that these new Mess-Johns in robes and coronets should
keep some sort of bounds in the democratic and levelling
principles which are expected from their titled pulpits.
The new evangelists will, I dare say, disappoint the
hopes that are conceived of them. They will not
become, literally as well as figuratively, polemic
divines, nor be disposed so to drill their congregations,
that they may, as in former blessed times, preach their
doctrines to regiments of dragoons and corps of
infantry and artillery. Such arrangements, however
favourable to the cause of compulsory freedom, civil

1 ' Those who dislike that mode of worship which is
prescribed by public authority, ought, if they can find
no worship out of the church which they approve, to set
up a separate, worship for themselves ; and by doing this,
and giving an example cf a rational and manly worship,
men of weight from their rank and literature may do the
greatest service to society and the world.' — P. 18, Dr.
Price's Sermon.

14 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

and religious, may not be equally conducive to the
national tranquillity. These few restrictions I hope
are no great stretches of intolerance, no very violent
exertions of despotism.

But I may say of our preacher, ' utinam nugis tota
ilia dedisset tempora scevitice.' — All things in this his
fulminating bull are not of so innoxious a tendency.
His doctrines affect our constitution in its vital parts.
He tells the Revolution Society, in this political
sermon, that his majesty, ' is almost the only lawful
king in the world, because the only one who owes his
crown to the choice of his people.' As to the kings of
the world, all of whom (except one) this arch pontiff of
the rights of men, with all the plenitude, and with more
than the boldness of the papal deposing power in its
meridian fervour of the twelfth century, puts into one
sweeping clause of ban and anathema, and proclaims
usurpers by circles of longitude and latitude, over the
whole globe, it behoves them to consider how they ad-
mit into their territories these apostolic missionaries,
who are to tell their subjects they are not lawful kings.
That is their concern. It is ours, as a domestic interest
of some moment, seriously to consider the solidity of the
only principle upon which these gentlemen acknowledge
a king of Great Britain to be entitled to their allegiance.

This doctrine, as applied to the prince now on the
British throne, either is nonsense, and therefore neither
true nor false, or it affirms a most unfounded, dangerous,
illegal, and unconstitutional position. According to
this spiritual doctor of politics, if his majesty does
not owe his crown to the choice of his people, he is no
lawful king. Now nothing can be more untrue than
that the crown of this kingdom is so held by his majesty.
Therefore if you follow their rule, the king of Great
Britain, who most certainly does not owe his high office
to any form of popular election, is in no respect better
than the rest of the gang of usurpers, who reign, or
rather rob, all over the face of this our miserable world,
without any sort or right or title to the allegiance of
their people. The policy of this general doctrine, so

THE CROWN OF ENGLAND 15

qualified, is evident enough. The propagators of this
political gospel are in hopes that their abstract principle
(their principle that a popular choice is necessary to
the legal existence of the sovereign magistracy) would
be overlooked, whilst the king of Great Britain was
not affected by it. In the meantime the ears of their
congregations would be gradually habituated to it, as
if it were a first principle admitted without dispute.
For the present it would only operate as a theory,
pickled in the preserving juices of pulpit eloquence, and
laid by for future use. Condo et compono quce mox de-
promere possim. By this policy, whilst our government
is soothed with a reservation in its favour, to which it
has no claim, the security, which it has in common
with all governments, so far as opinion is security, is
taken away.

Thus these politicians proceed, whilst little notice is
taken of their doctrines ; but when they come to be
examined upon the plain meaning of their words, and
the direct tendency of their doctrines, then equivoca-
tions and slippery constructions come into play. When
they say the king owes his crown to the choice of his
people, and is therefore the only lawful sovereign in
the world, they will perhaps tell us they mean to say
no more than that some of the king's predecessors have
been called to the throne by some sort of choice ; and,
therefore, he owes his crown to the choice of his people.
Thus, by a miserable subterfuge, they hope to render
their proposition safe, by rendering it nugatory. They
are welcome to the asylum they seek for their offence,
since they take refuge in their folly. For, if you admit
this interpretation, how does their idea of election differ
from our idea of inheritance ? And how does the settle-
ment of the crown, in the Brunswick line, derived from
James I, come to legalize our monarchy, rather than
that of any of the neighbouring countries ? At some
time or other, to be sure, all the beginners of dynasties
were chosen by those who called them to govern.
There is ground enough for the opinion that all the
kingdoms of Europe were, at a remote period, elective,

16 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

with more or fewer limitations in the objects of choice.
But whatever kings might have been here, or elsewhere,
a thousand years ago, or in whatever manner the ruling
dynasties of England or France may have begun, the
king of Great Britain is, at this day, king by a fixed
rule of succession, according to the laws of his country ;
and, whilst the legal conditions of the compact of
sovereignty are performed by him, (as they are per-
formed,) he holds his crown in contempt of the choice of
the Revolution Society, who have not a single vote for
a king amongst them, either individually or collectively ;
though I make no doubt they would soon erect them-
selves into an electoral college, if things were ripe to
give effect to their claim. His majesty's heirs and
successors, each in his time and order, will come to the
crown with the same contempt of their choice with
which his majesty has succeeded to that he wears.

Whatever may be the success of evasion in explaining
away the gross error of fact, which supposes that his
majesty (though he holds it in concurrence with the
wishes) owes his crown to the choice of his people, yet
nothing can evade their full explicit declaration, con-
cerning the principle of a right in the people to choose ;
which right is directly maintained, and tenaciously
adhered to. All the oblique insinuations concerning
election bottom in this proposition, and are referable
to it. Lest the foundation of the king's exclusive legal
title should pass for a mere rant of adulatory freedom,
the political divine proceeds dogmatically to assert ',
that, by the prmeiples of the Revolution, the people of
England have acquired three fundamental rights, all of
which, with him, compose one system, and lie together
in one short sentence ; namely, that we have acquired
a right

1. ' To choose our own governors.'

2. ' To cashier them for misconduct.'

3. ' To frame a government for ourselves.'

1 P. 34, ' Discourse on the Love of our Country,' by
Dr. Price.

THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION 17

This new, and hitherto unheard-of bill of rights, though,
made in the name of the whole people, belongs to those
gentlemen and their faction only. The body of the
people of England have no share in it. They utterly
disclaim it. They will resist the practical assertion of
it with their lives and fortunes. They are bound to
do so by the laws of their country, made at the time of
that very Revolution, which is appealed to in favour
of the fictitious rights claimed by the society which
abuses its name.

These gentlemen of the Old Jewry, in all their
reasonings on the Revolution of 1688, have a revolution
which happened in England about forty years before,
and the late French Revolution, so much before their
eyes, and in their hearts, that they are constantly con-
founding all the three together. It is necessary that
we should separate what they confound. We must
recall their erring fancies to the acts of the Revolution
which we revere, for the discovery of its true principles.
If the principles of the Revolution of 1688 are any-
where to be found, it is in the statute called the Declara-
tion of Right. In that most wise, sober, and considerate
declaration, drawn up by great lawyers and great
statesmen, and not by warm and inexperienced
enthusiasts, not one word is said, nor one suggestion
made, of a general right ' to choose our own governors ;
to cashier them for misconduct ; and to form a govern-
ment for ourselves.'

This Declaration of Right (the act of the 1st of William
and Mary, sess. 2, ch. 2), is the corner-stone of our
constitution, as reinforced, explained, improved, and
in its fundamental principles for ever settled. It Is
called ' An Act for declaring the rights and liberties of
the subject, and for settling the succession of the crown.*
You will observe, that these rights and this succession
are declared in one body, and bound indissolubly
together.

A few years after this period, a second opportunity
offered for asserting a right of election to the crown.
On the prospect of a total failure of issue from King

BURKE. IV C

18 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

William, and from the princess, afterwards Queen
Anne, the consideration of the settlement of the crown,
and of a further security for the liberties of the people,
again came before the legislature. Did they this second
time make any provision for legalizing the crown on
the spurious revolution principles of the Old Jewry.
No. They followed the principles which prevailed in
the Declaration of Right ; indicating with more pre-
cision the persons who were to inherit in the Protestant
line. This act also incorporated, by the same policy,
our liberties, and an hereditary succession in the same
act. Instead of a right to choose our own governors
they declared that the succession in that line (the
Protestant line drawn from James I.) was absolutely
necessary ' for the peace, quiet, and security of the
realm,' and that it was equally urgent on them ' to
maintain a certainty in the succession thereof, to which
the subjects may safely have recourse for their pro-
tection.' But these acts, in which are heard the un-
erring, unambiguous, oracles of revolution policy,
instead of countenancing the delusive, gipsy, predic-
tions of a ' right to choose our governors,' prove to a
demonstration how totally adverse the wisdom of the
nation was from turning a case of necessity into a rule
of law.

Unquestionably there was at the Revolution, in the
person of King William, a small and a temporary devia-
tion from the strict order of a regular hereditary suc-
cession ; but it is against all genuine principles of
jurisprudence to draw a principle from a law made in
a special case, and regarding an individual person.
Privilegium non transit in exemplum. If ever there
was a time favourable for establishing the principle
that a king of popular choice was the only legal king,
without all doubt it was at the Revolution. Its not
being done at that time is a proof that the nation was
of opinion it ought not to be done at any time. There
is no person so completely ignorant of our history as
not to know, that the majority in parliament of both
parties were so little disposed to anything resembling

THE DECLARATION OF RIGHT 19

that principle, that at first they were determined to
place the vacant crown, not on the head of the Prince
of Orange, but on that of his wife Mary, daughter of
King James, the eldest born of the issue of that king,
which they acknowledged as undoubtedly his. It
would be to repeat a very trite story, to recall to your
memory all those circumstances which demonstrated
that their accepting King William was not properly a
choice ; but to all those who did not wish, in effect, to re-
call King James, or to deluge their country in blood, and
again to bring their religion, laws, and liberties, into the
peril they had just escaped, it was an act of necessity, in
the strictest moral sense in which necessity can be
taken.

In the very act, in which for a time, and in a single
case, parliament departed from the strict order of in-
heritance, in favour of a prince, who, though not next,
was, however, very near in the line of succession, it is
curious to observe how Lord Somers, who drew the
bill called the Declaration of Right, has comported
himself on that delicate occasion. It is curious to ob-
serve with what address this temporary solation of
continuity is kept from the eye ; whilst all that could
be found in this act of necessity to countenance the
idea of an hereditary succession is brought forward,
and fostered, and made the most of, by this great man,
and by the legislature who followed him. Quitting the
dry, imperative style of an act of parliament, he makes
the lords and commons fall to a pious, legislative ejacu-
lation, and declare, that they consider it ' as a marvel-
lous providence, and merciful goodness of God to this
nation, to preserve their said majesties royal persons,
most happily to reign over us on the throne of their
ancestors, for which, from the bottom of their hearts,
they return their humblest thanks and praises.' — The
legislature plainly had in view the act of recognition of
the first of Queen Elizabeth, chap. 3rd, and of that of
James I, chap. 1st, both acts strongly declaratory of
the inheritable nature of the crown, and in many parts
they follow, with a nearly literal precision, the words
c2

20 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

and even the form of thanksgiving, which is found in
these old declaratory statutes.

The two Houses, in the act of King William, did not
thank God that they had found a fair opportunity to
assert a right to choose their own governors, much less
to make an election the only lawful title to the crown.
Their having been in condition to avoid the very
appearance of it, as much as possible, was by them
considered as a providential escape. They threw a
politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance
tending to weaken the rights, which in the meliorated
order of succession they meant to perpetuate ; or which
might furnish a precedent for any future departure
from what they had then settled for ever. Accordingly,
that they might not relax the nerves of their monarchy,
and that they might preserve a close conformity to
the practice of their ancestors, as it appeared in the
declaratory statutes of Queen Mary * and Queen Eliza-
beth, in the next clause they vest, by recognition, in
their majesties, all the legal prerogatives of the crown,
declaring, ' that in them they are most fully, rightfully, and
entirely, invested, incorporated, united, and annexed.'
In the clause which follows, for preventing questions,
by reason of any pretended titles to the crown, they
declare (observing also in this the traditionary lan-
guage, along with the traditionary policy of the nation,
and repeating as from a rubric the language of the
preceding acts of Elizabeth and James) that on the
preserving ' a certainty in the SUCCESSION thereof, the
unity, peace, and tranquillity of this nation, doth,
under God, wholly depend.'

They knew that a doubtful title of succession would
but too much resemble an election ; and that an
election would be utterly destructive of the ' unity,
peace, and tranquillity of this nation/ which they
thought to be considerations of some moment. To
provide for these objects, and therefore to exclude for
ever the Old Jewry doctrine of ' a right to choose our

1 1st Mary, sess. 3, ch. 1.

LORD SOMERS 21

own governors,' they follow with a clause, containing
a most solemn pledge, taken from the preceding act
of Queen Elizabeth, as solemn a pledge as ever was or
can be given in favour of an hereditary succession, and
as solemn a renunciation as could be made of the
principles by this Society imputed to them. ' The
lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, do, in the
name of all the people aforesaid, most humbly and
faithfully submit themselves, their heirs, and posterities
for ever ; and do faithfully promise, that they will
stand to, maintain, and defend their said majesties,
and also the limitation of the crown, herein specified and
contained, to the utmost of their powers,' &c. &c.

So far is it from being true, that we acquired a right
by the Revolution to elect our kings, that if we had
possessed it before, the English nation did at that time
most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves,
and for all their posterity for ever. These gentlemen
may value themselves as much as they please on their
Whig principles ; but I never desire to be thought a
better Whig than Lord Somers ; or to understand the
principles of the Revolution better than those by
whom it was brought about ; or to read in the Declara-
tion of Right any mysteries unknown to those whose
penetrating style has engraved in our ordinances, and
in our hearts, the words and spirit of that immortal law.

It is true that, aided with the powers derived from
force and opportunity, the nation was at that time, in
some sense, free to take what course it pleased for filling
the throne ; but only free to do so upon the same
grounds on which they might have wholly abolished
their monarchy, and every other part of their constitu-
tion. However, they did not think such bold changes
within their commission. It is indeed difficult, per-
haps impossible, to give limits to the mere abstract
competence of the supreme power, such as was exer-
cised by parliament at that time ; but the limits of
a moral competence, subjecting, even in powers more
indisputably sovereign, occasional will to permanent
reason, and to the steady maxims of faith, justice, and

22 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

fixed fundamental policy, are perfectly intelligible, and
psrf ectly binding upon those who exercise any authority
under any name, or under any title, in the state. The
House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent
to dissolve the House of Commons ; no, nor even to
dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion
in the legislature of the kingdom. Though a king may
abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the
monarchy. By as strong, or by a stronger reason, the
House of Commons cannot renounce its share of author-
ity. The engagement and pact of society, which gene-
rally goes by the name of the constitution, forbids such
invasion and such surrender. The constituent parts
of a state are obliged to hold their public faith with
each other, and with all those who derive any serious
interest under their engagements, as much as the
whole state is bound to keep its faith with separate
communities. Otherwise competence and power would
soon be confounded, and no law be left but the will of
a prevailing force. On this principle the succession of
the crown has always been what it now is, an hereditary
succession by law : in the old line it was a succession
by the common law ; in the new by the statute law ;
operating on the principles of the common law, not
changing the substance, but regulating the mode and
describing the persons. Both these descriptions of
law are of the same force, and are derived from an
eq[ual authority, emanating from the common agree-
ment and original compact of the state, communi
sponsione reipublicce, and as such are equally binding on
king and people too, as long as the terms are observed,
and they continue the same body politic.

It is far from impossible to reconcile, if we do not
surfer ourselves to be entangled in the mazes of meta-
physic sophistry, the use both of a fixed rule and an
occasional deviation ; the sacredness of an hereditary
principle of succession in our government, with a power
of change in its application in cases of extreme emer-
gency. Even in that extremity (if we take the measure
of our rights by our exercise of them at the Revolution)

CHANGE IN A STATE 23

the change is to be confined to the peccant part only ;
to the part which produced the necessary deviation ;
and even then it is to be effected without a decomposi-
tion of the whole civil and political mass, for the pur-
pose of originating a new civil order out of the first
elements of society.

A state without the means of some change is without
the means of its conservation. Without such means
it might even risk the loss of that part of the constitu-
tion which it wished the most religiously to preserve.
The two principles of conservation and correction
operated strongly at the two critical periods of the
Restoration and Revolution, when England found itself
without a king. At both those periods the nation
had lost the bond of union in their ancient edifice ; they
did not, however, dissolve the whole fabric. On the
contrary, in both cases they regenerated the deficient
part of the old constitution through the parts which
were not impaired. They kept these old parts exactly
as they were, that the part recovered might be suited
to them. They acted by the ancient organized states
in the shape of their old organization, and not by the
organic molecidce of a disbanded people. At no time,
perhaps, did the sovereign legislature manifest a more
tender regard to that fundamental principle of British
constitutionalpolicy,than at the time of the Revolution,
when it deviated from the direct line of hereditary suc-
cession. The crown was carried somewhat out of the
line in which it had before moved ; but the new line
was derived from the same stock. It was still a line of
hereditary descent ; still an hereditary descent in the
same blood, though an hereditary descent qualified
with Protestantism. When the legislature altered
the direction, but kept the principle, they showed that
they held it inviolable.

On this principle, the law of inheritance had admitted
some amendment in the old time, and long before the
era of the Revolution. Some time after the conquest
great questions arose upon the legal principles of
hereditary descent. It became a matter of doubt,

24 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

whether the heir per capita or the heir per stirpes was
to succeed ; but whether the heir per capita gave way
when the heirdom per stirpes took place, or the Catholic
heir when the Protestant was preferred, the inheritable
principle survived with a sort of immortality through
all transmigrations — mvltosque per annos stat fortuna
domus et avi numerantur avorum. This is the spirit of
our constitution, not only in its settled course, but in
all its revolutions. Whoever came in, or however he
came in, whether he obtained the crown by law, or by
force, the hereditary succession was either continued
or adopted.

The gentlemen of the Society for Revolutions see
nothing in that of 1688 but the deviation from the
constitution ; and they take the deviation from the
principle for the principle. They have little regard
to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though
they may see that it leaves positive authority in very
few of the positive institutions of this country. When
such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that
no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the
princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can
be valid. Do these theorists mean to imitate some of
their predecessors, who dragged the bodies of our ancient
sovereigns out of the quiet of their tombs ? Do they
mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings
that have reigned before the Revolution, and conse-
quently to stain the throne of England with the blot of
a continual usurpation ? Do they mean to invalidate,
annul, or to call into question, together with the titles
of the whole line of our kings, that great body of our
statute law which passed under those whom they treat
as usurpers ? to annul laws of inestimable value to
our liberties — of as great value at least as any which
have passed at or since the period of the Revolution ?
If kings, who did not owe their crown to the choice of
their people, had no title to make laws, what will
become of the statute de tallagio non concedendo ? of
the petition of right ? of the act of habeas corpus ? Do
these new doctors of the rights of men presume to

THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT 25

assert that King James the Second, who came to the
crown as next of blood, according to the rules of a then
unqualified succession, was not to all intents and pur-
poses a lawful king of England, before he had done any
of those acts which were justly construed into an
abdication of his crown ? If he was not, much trouble
in parliament might have been saved at the period
these gentlemen commemorate. But King James was
a bad kingjwith a good title, and not an usurper. The
princes who succeeded according to the act of parliament
which settled the crown on the Electress Sophia and
on her descendants, being Protestants, came in as much
by a title of inheritance as King James did. He came
in according to the law, as it stood at his accession to
the crown ; and the princes of the House of Brunswick
came to the inheritance of the crown, not by election,
but by the law, as it stood at their several accessions, of
Protestant descent and inheritance, as I hope I have
shown sufficiently.

The law, by which this royal family is specifically
destined to the succession, is the act of the 12th and
13th of King William. The terms of this act bind ' us
and our heirs, and our posterity, to them, their heirs,
and their posterity? being Protestants, to the end of
time, in the same words as the Declaration of Right
had bound us to the heirs of King William and Queen
Mary. It therefore secures both an hereditary crown
and an hereditary allegiance. On what ground, except
the constitutional policy of forming an establishment
to secure that kind of succession which is to preclude
a choice of the people for ever, could the legislature have
fastidiously rejected the fair and abundant choice
which our own country presented to them, and searched
in strange lands for a foreign princess, from whose
womb the line of our future rulers were to derive their
title to govern millions of men through a series of ages ?

The Princess Sophia was named in the act of settle-
ment of the 12th and 13th of King William, for a stock
and root of inheritance to our kings, and not for her
merits as a temporary administratrix of a power, which

26 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

she might not, and in fact did not, herself ever exercise.
She was adopted for one reason, and for one only,
because, says the act, ' the most excellent Princess
Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, is
daughter of the most excellent Princess Elizabeth, late
Queen of Bohemia, daughter of our late sovereign lord
King James the First, of happy memory, and is hereby
declared to be the next in succession in the Protestant
line,' &c. &c. ; ' and the crown shall continue to the
heirs of her body, being Protestants.' This limitation
was made by parliament, that through the Princess
Sophia an inheritable line not only was to be continued
in future, but (what they thought very material) that
through her it was to be connected with the old stock
of inheritance in King James the First ; in order that
the monarchy might preserve an unbroken unity
through all ages, and might be preserved (with safety
to our religion) in the old approved mode by descent,
in which, if our liberties had been once endangered, they
had often, through all storms and struggles of preroga-
tive and privilege, been preserved. They did well.
No experience has taught us, that in any other course or
method than that of an hereditary crown our liberties
can be regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as
our hereditary right. An irregular, convulsive move-
ment may be necessary to throw off an irregular, con-
vulsive disease. But the course of succession is the
heakhy habit of the British constitution. Was it that
the legislature wanted, at the act for the limitation of
the crown in the Hanoverian line, drawn through the
female descendants of James the First, a due sense of
the inconveniences of having two or three, or possibly
more foreigners in succession to the British throne ?
No ! — they had a due sense of the evils which might
happen from such foreign rule, and more than a duo
sense of them. But a more decisive proof cannot ba
given of the full conviction of the British nation that
the principles of the Revolution did not authorize them
to elect kings at their pleasure, and without any atten-
tion to the ancient fundamental principles of our govern-

DISLIKE TO REVOLUTION 27

merit, than their continuing to adopt a plan of heredi-
tary Protestant succession in the old line, with all the
dangers and all the inconveniences of its being a foreign
line full before their eyes, and operating with the utmost
force upon their minds.

A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload
a matter, so capable of supporting itself, by the then
unnecessary support of any argument ; but this se-
ditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now publicly
taught, avowed, and printed. The dislike I feel to
revolutions, the signals for which have so often been
given from pulpits ; the spirit of change that is gone
abroad ; the total contempt which prevails with you,
and may come to prevail with us of all ancient
institutions, when set in opposition to a present
sense of convenience, or to the bent of a present
inclination : all these considerations make it not
unadvisable, in my opinion, to call back our atten-
tion to the true principles of our own domestic laws ;
that you, my French friend, should begin to know, and
that we should continue to cherish them. We ought
not, on either side of the water, to suffer ourselves to
be imposed upon by the counterfeit wares which some
persons, by a double fraud, export to you in illicit
bottoms, as raw commodities of British growth, though
wholly alien to our soil, in order afterwards to smuggle
them back again into this country, manufactured after
the newest Paris fashion of an improved liberty.

The people of England will not ape the fashions they
have never tried, nor go back to those which they have
found mischievous on trial. They look upon the
legal hereditary succession of their crown as among
their rights, not as among their wrongs ; as a benefit,
not as a grievance ; as a security for their liberty, not
as a badge of servitude. They look on the frame of
their commonwealth, such as it stands, to be of inestim-
able value ; and they conceive the undisturbed succes-
sion of the crown to be a pledge of the stability and
perpetuity of all the other members of our constitution.

I shall beg leave, before I go any further, to take

28 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

notice of some paltry artifices, which the abettors of
election, as the only lawful title to the crown, are ready
to employ, in order to render the support of the just
principles of our constitution a task somewhat invidious.
These sophisters substitute a fictitious cause, and feigned
personages, in whose favour they suppose you engaged,
whenever you defend the inheritable nature of the
crown. It is common with them to dispute as if they
were in a conflict with some of those exploded fanatics
of slavery, who formerly maintained, what I believe
no creature now maintains, ' that the crown is held by
divine, hereditary, and indefeasible right.' — These old
fanatics of single arbitrary power dogmatized as if
hereditary royalty was the only lawful government in
the world, just as our new fanatics of popular arbitrary
power maintain that a popular election is the sole
lawful source of authority. The old prerogative
enthusiasts, it is true, did speculate foolishly, and
perhaps impiously too, as if monarchy had more of
a divine sanction than any other mode of government ;
and as if a right to govern by inheritance were in
strictness indefeasible in every person who should be
found in the succession to a throne, and under every
circumstance, which no civil or political right can be.
But an absurd opinion concerning the king's hereditary
right to the crown does not prejudice one that is
rational, and bottomed upon solid principles of law and
policy. If all the absurd theories of lawyers and
divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are
conversant, we should have no law, and no religion,
left in the world. But an absurd theory on one side of
a question forms no justification for alleging a false
fact, or promulgating mischievous maxims, on the
other.

The second claim of the Revolution Society is ' a
right of cashiering their governors for misconduct.'
Perhaps the apprehensions our ancestors entertained
of forming such a precedent as that ' of cashiering for
misconduct,' was the cause that the declaration of the
act, which implied the abdication of King James, was,

ABDICATION OF JAMES II 29

if it had any fault, rather too guarded, and too circum-
stantial J. But all this guard, and all this accumula-
tion of circumstances, serve to show the spirit of caution
which predominated in the national councils, in a
situation in which men, irritated by oppression and
elevated by a triumph over it, are apt to abandon
themselves to violent and extreme courses : it shows
the anxiety of the great men who influenced the conduct
of affairs at that great event, to make the Revolution
a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future
revolutions.

No government could stand a moment, if it could
be blown down with any thing so loose and indefinite
as an opinion of ' misconduct.' They who led at the
Revolution grounded their virtual abdication of King
James upon no such light and uncertain principle. They
charged him with nothing less than a design, confirmed
by a multitude of illegal overt acts, to subvert the
Protestant church and state, and their fundamental, un-
questionable laws and liberties : they charged him with
having broken the original contract between king and
people. This was more than misconduct, A grave and
overruling necessity obliged them to take the step they
took, and took with infinite reluctance, as under that
most rigorous of all laws. Their trust for the future
preservation of the constitution was not in future
revolutions. The grand policy of all their regulations
was to render it almost impracticable for any future
sovereign to compel the states of the kingdom to have
again recourse to those violent remedies. They left
the crown what, in the eye and estimation of law, it
had ever been, perfectly irresponsible. In order to
lighten the crown still further, they aggravated respon-

1 ' That King James II, having endeavoured to subvert
the constitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original
contract between king and people, and, by the advice of
Jesuits, and other wicked persons, having violated the
fundamental laws, and having withdrawn, himself out of the
kingdom, hath abdicated the government, and the throne
is thereby vacant .'

30 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

sibility on ministers of state. By the statute of
the first of King William, sess. 2nd, called ' the act for
declaring the rights and liberties of the subject, and for
settling the succession of the croivn? they enacted, that the
ministers should serve the crown on the terms of that
declaration. They secured soon after the frequent
meetings of parliament, by which the whole government
would be under the constant inspection and active con-
trol of the popular representative and of the magnates
of the kingdom. In the next great constitutional act,
that of the 12th and 13th of King William, for the
further limitation of the crown, and better securing the
rights and liberties of the subject, they provided, ' that
no pardon under the great seal of England should bo
pleadable to an impeachment by the Commons in
parliament.' The rule laid down for government in the
Declaration of Right, the constant inspection of par-
liament, the practical claim of impeachment, they
thought infinitely a better security not only for their
constitutional liberty, but against the vices of adminis-
tration, than the reservation of a right so difficult in the
practice, so uncertain in the issue, and often so mis-
chievous in the consequences, as that of ' cashiering
their governors.'

Dr. Price, in this sermon l, condemns very properly
the practrice of gross, adulatory addresses to kings.
Instead of this fulsome style, he proposes that his
majesty should be told, on occasions of congratulation,
that ' he is to consider himself as more properly the
servant than the sovereign of his people.' For a
compliment, this new form of address does not seem
to be very soothing. Those who are servants in name,
as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their situa-
tion, their duty, and their obligations. The slave in
the old play tells his master, ' Hcec commemoratio est
quasi exfrobratio.'1 It is not pleasant as compliment ;
it is not wholesome as instruction. After all, if the king
were to bring himself to echo this new kind of address,

1 P. 22-24.

'CASHIERING KINGS' 31

to adopt it in terms, and even to take the appellation
of servant of the people as his royal style, how either
he or we should be much amended by it, I cannot
imagine. I have seen very assuming letters, signed,
Your most obedient, humble servant. The proudest
domination that ever was endured on earth took a
title of still greater humility than that which is now
proposed for sovereigns by the Apostle of Liberty.
Kings and nations were trampled upon by the foot of
one calling himself ' the Servant of Servants ' ; and
mandates for deposing sovereigns were sealed with
the signet of ' the Fisherman.'

I should have considered all this as no more than a
sort of flippant, vain discourse, in which, as in an unsa-
voury fume, several persons suffer the spirit of liberty
to evaporate, if it were not plainly in support of the
idea, and a part of the scheme of ' cashiering kings for
misconduct.' In that light it is worth some observation.

Kings, in one sense, are undoubtedly the servants of
the people, because their power has no other rational
end than that of the general advantage ; but it is not
true that they are, in the ordinary sense (by our consti-
tution, at least) anything like servants ; the essence of
whose situation is to obey the commands of some other,
and to be removable at pleasure. But the king of
Great Britain obeys no other person ; all other persons
are individually and collectively too, under him, and
owe to him a legal obedience. The law, which knows
neither to natter nor to insult, calls this high magistrate
not our servant, as this humble divine calls him, but
' owr sovereign lord the king ' ; and we, on our parts,
have learned to speak only the primitive language of
the law, and not the confused jargon of their Baby-
lonian pulpits.

As he is not to obey us, but we are to obey the law in
him, our constitution has made no sort of provision
towards rendering him, as a servant, in any degree
responsible. Our constitution knows nothing of a
magistrate like the Justicia of Arragon ; nor of any
court legally appointed, nor of any process legally

32 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

settled for submitting the king to the responsibility
belonging to all servants. In this he is not distinguished
from the commons and the lords ; who, in their several
public capacities, can never be called to an account for
their conduct ; although the Revolution Society chooses
to assert, in direct opposition to one of the wisest and
most beautiful parts of our constitution, that ' a king
is no more than the first servant of the public, created
by it, and responsible to it.'

Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have
deserved then1 fame for wisdom, if they had found no
security for their freedom, but in rendering their
government feeble in its operations and precarious in
its tenure ; if they had been able to contrive no better
remedy against arbitrary power than civil confusion.
Let these gentlemen state who that representative public
is to whom they will affirm the king, as a servant, to
be responsible. It will be then time enough for me
to produce to them the positive statute law which
affirms that he is not.

The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these
gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if
ever, be performed without force. It then becomes
a case of war, and not of constitution. Laws are
commanded to hold their tongues amongst arms ; and
tribunals fall to the ground with the peace they are
no longer able to uphold. The Revolution of 1688
was obtained by a just war, in the only case in which
any war, and much more a civil war, can be just.
' Justa bella quibus necessaria.' The question of de-
throning, or, if these gentlemen like the phrase better,
' cashiering kings,' will always be, as it has always been,
an extraordinary question of state, and wholly out of
the law ; a question (like all other questions of state)
of dispositions, and of means, and of probable conse-
quences, rather than of positive rights. As it was not
made for common abuses, so it is not to be agitated by
common minds. The speculative line of demarcation,
where obedience ought to end, and resistance must
begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable. It

THE RIGHT TO GOVERN 33

is not a single act, or a single event, which determines
it. Governments must be abused and deranged in-
deed, before it can be thought of ; and the prospect of
the future must be as bad as the experience of the
past. When things are in that lamentable condition,
the nature of the disease is to indicate the remedy to
those whom nature has qualified to administer in
extremities this critical, ambiguous, bitter potion to
a distempered state. Times, and occasions, and
provocations, will teach their own lessons. The wise
will determine from the gravity of the case ; the irritable
from sensibility to oppression ; the high-minded from
disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy
hands ; the brave and bold from the love of honourable
danger in a generous cause : but, with or without right,
a revolution will be the very last resource of the thinking
and the good.

The third head of right, asserted by the pulpit of the
Old Jewry, namely, the ' right to form a government
for ourselves,' has, at least, as little countenance trom
anything done at the Revolution, either in precedent
or principle, as the two first of their claims. The
Revolution was made to preserve our ancient, indis-
putable laws and liberties, and that ancient constitution
of government which is our only security for law and
liberty. If you are desirous of knowing the spirit of
our constitution, and the policy which predominated in
that great period which has secured it to this hour, pray
look for both in our histories, in our records, in our
acts of parliament, and journals of parliament, and not
in the sermons of the Old Jewry, and the after-dinner
toasts of the Revolution Society. In the former you
will find other ideas and another language. Such a
•claim is as ill-suited to our temper and wishes as it is
unsupported by any appearance of authority. The
very idea of the fabrication of a new government is
enough to fill us with disgust and horror. We wished
at the period of the Revolution, and do now wish, to
derive all we possess as an inheritance, from our fore-
fathers. Upon that body and stock of inheritance we

BITRKR. IV

34 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

have taken care not to inoculate any scion alien to the
natore of the original plant. All the reformations we
have hitherto made have proceeded upon the principle
of reference to antiquity ; and I hope, nay I am per-
suaded, that all those which possibly may be made
hereafter, will be carefully formed upon analogical
precedent, authority, and example.

Our oldest reformation is that of Magna Charta.
Yoa will see that Sir Edward Coke, that great oracle of
our law, and indeed all the great men who follow him,
to Blackstone a, are industrious to prove the pedigree
of our liberties. They endeavour to prove, that the
ancient charter, the Magna Charta of King John, was
connected with another positive charter from Henry I.,
and that both the one and the other were nothing more
than a reaffirrnance of the still more ancient standing
law of the kingdom. In the matter of fact, for the
greater part, these authors appear to be in the right ;
perhaps not always ; but if the lawyers mistake in
some particulars, it proves my position still the more
strongly ; because it demonstrates the powerful pre-
possession towards antiquity, with which the minds
of all our lawyers and legislators, and of all the people
whom they wish to influence, have been always filled ;
and the stationary policy of this kingdom in considering
their most sacred rights and franchises as an inheritance.

In the famous law of the 3rd of Charles I. called the
Petition of Right, the parliament says to the king, ' Your
subjects have inherited this freedom,' claiming their
franchises not on abstract principles ' as the rights of
men,' but as the rights of Englishmen, and as a patri-
mony derived from their forefathers. Selden, and the
other profoundly learned men, who drew this petition
of right, were as well acquainted, at least, with all the
general theories concerning the ' rights of men,' as any
of the discoursers in our pulpits, or on your tribune ; full
as well as Dr. Price, or as the Abbe Sieyes. But, for

1 See Blackstone's ' Magna Charta,' printed at Oxford,
1759.

LIBERTIES AN INHERITANCE 35

reasons worthy of that practical wisdom which super-
seded their theoretic science, they preferred this posi-
tive, recorded, hereditary title to all which can be dear
to the man and the citizen, to that vague speculative
right, which exposed their sure inheritance to be scram-
bled for and torn to pieces by every wild, litigious spirit.
The same policy pervades all the laws which have
since been made for the preservation of our liberties.
In the 1st of William and Mary, in the famous statute,
called the Declaration of Right, the two Houses utter
not a syllable of ' a right to frame a government for
themselves.' You will see that their whole care was
to secure the religion, laws, and liberties., that had
been long possessed, and had been lately endangered.
' Taking 1 into their most serious consideration the
best means for making such an establishment, that
their religion, laws, and liberties, might not be in danger
of being again subverted,' they auspicate all their
proceedings, by stating as some of those best means, ' in
the first place ' to do ' as their ancestors in like cases have
usually done for vindicating their ancient rights and
liberties, to declare ' ; — and then they pray the king and
queen, ' that it may be declared and enacted, that all
and singular the rights and liberties asserted and declared
are the true ancient and indubitable rights and liberties
of the people of this kingdom.'

You will observe, that from Magna Charta to the
Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform policy of
our constitution to claim and assert our liberties, as an
entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers,
and to be transmitted to our posterity ; as an estate
specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, with-
out any reference whatever to any other more general
or prior right. By this means our constitution preserves
an unity in so great a diversity of its parts. We have an
inheritable crown ; an inheritable peerage ; and a House
of Commons and a people inheriting privileges, fran-
chises, and liberties, from a long line of ancestors.

1 1 W. and M.
D2

36 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

The policy appears to me to be the result of profound
reflection ; or rather the happy effect of following
nature, which is wisdom without reflection, and above
it. A spirit of innovation is generally the result of
a selfish temper, and confined views. People will not
look forward to posterity, who never look backward
to their ancestors. Besides, the people of England
well know, that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure
principle of conservation, and a sure principle of
transmission ; without at all excluding a principle of
improvement. It leaves acquisition free ; but it
secures what it acquires. Whatever advantages are
obtained by a state proceeding on these maxims, are
locked fast as in a sort of family settlement ; grasped
as in a kind of mortmain for ever. By a con-
stitutional policy working after the pattern of nature,
we receive, we hold, we transmit our government and
our privileges, in the same manner in which we enjoy
and transmit our property and our lives. The institu-
tions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of Provi-
dence, are handed down to us, and from us, in the same
course and order. Our political system is placed in a
just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the
world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a
permanent body composed of transitory parts ; wherein,
by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding
together the great mysterious incorporation of the
human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or
middle-aged, or young, but, in a condition of unchange-
able constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of
perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression.
Thus, by preserving the method of nature in the conduct
of the state, in what we improve, we are never wholly
new ; in what we retain, we are never wholly obsolete.
By adhering in this manner and on those principles to
our forefathers, we are guided not by the superstition
of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.
In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame
of polity the image of a relation in blood ; binding up
the constitution of our country with our dearest

THE CONSTITUTION REVERENCED 37

domestic ties ; adopting our fundamental laws into
the bosom of our family affections ; keeping inseparable
and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined
and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths,
our sepulchres, and our altars.

Through the same plan of a conformity to nature in
our artificial institutions, and by calling in the aid of
her unerring and powerful instincts, to fortify the
fallible and feeble contrivances of our reason, we have
derived several other, and those no small benefits,
from considering our liberties in the light of an inheri-
tance. Always acting as if in the presence of canonized
forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to
misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.
This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of
habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart
insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing
those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.
By this means our liberty becomes a noble freedom.
It carries an imposing and majestic aspect. It has
a pedigree and illustrating ancestors. It has its
bearings and its ensigns armorial. It has its gallery of
portraits ; its monumental inscriptions ; its records,
evidences, and titles. We procure reverence to our civil
institutions on the principle upon which nature teaches
us to revere individual men ; on account of their age,
and on account of those from whom they are descended.
All your sophisters cannot produce anything better
adapted to preserve a rational and manly freedom than
the course that we have pursued, who have chosen
our nature rather than our speculations, our breasts
rather than our inventions, for the great conservatories
and magazines of our rights and privileges.

You might, if you pleased, have profited of our ex-
ample, and have given to your recovered freedom a
correspondent dignity. Your privileges, though dis-
continued, were not lost to memory. Your constitu-
tion, it is true, whilst you were out of possession,
suffered waste and dilapidation ; but you possessed in
some parts the walls, and, in all, the foundations, of a

noble and venerable castle. You might have repaired
tnose walls ; you might have built on those old founda-
tions. Your constitution was suspended before it was
perfected ; but you had the elements of a constitution
very nearly as good as could be wished. In your old
states you possessed that variety of parts corresponding
with the various descriptions of which your community
was happily composed ; you had all that combination,
and all that opposition of interests, you had that action
and counteraction which, in the natural and in the
political world, from the reciprocal struggle of dis-
cordant powers, draws out the harmony of the universe.
These opposed and conflicting interests, which you con-
sidered as so great a blemish in your old and in our
present constitution, interpose a salutary check to all
precipitate resolutions. They render deliberation a
matter not of choice, but of necessity ; they make all
change a subject of compromise, which naturally begets
moderation ; they produce temperaments, preventing
the sore evil of harsh, crude, unqualified reformations ;
and rendering all the headlong exertions of arbitrary
power, in the few or in the many, for ever impracticable.
Through that diversity of members and interests,
general liberty had as many securities as there were
separate views in the several orders ; whilst by pressing
down the whole by the weight of a real monarchy, the
separate parts would have been prevented from warping,
and starting from their allotted places.

You had all these advantages in your ancient states ;
but you chose to act as if you had never been moulded
into civil society, and had everything to begin anew.
You began ill, because you began by despising everything
that belonged to you. You set up your trade without
a capital. If the last generations of your country
appeared without much lustre in your eyes, you might
have passed them by, and derived your claims from
a more early race of ancestors. Under a pious predilec-
tion for those ancestors, your imaginations would have
realized in them a standard of virtue and wisdom,
beyond the vulgar practice of the hour : and you would

EXAMPLES TO FRANCE 39

have risen with the example to whose imitation you
aspired. Respecting your forefathers, you would have
been taught to respect yourselves. You would not
have chosen to consider the French as a people of yester-
day, as a nation of low-born servile wretches until the
emancipating year of 1789. In order to furnish, at the
expense of your honour, an excuse to your apologists
here for several enormities of yours, you would not
have been content to be represented as a gang of
Maroon slaves, suddenly broke loose from the house of
bondage, and therefore to be pardoned for your abuse
of the liberty to which you were not accustomed, and
were ill fitted. Would it not, my worthy friend, have
been wiser to have you thought, what I, for one, always
thought you, a generous and gallant nation, long misled
to your disadvantage by your high and romantic senti-
ments of fidelity, honour, and loyalty ; that events
had been unfavourable to you, but that you were not
enslaved through any illiberal or servile disposition ;
that in your most devoted submission, you were
actuated by a principle of public spirit, and that it
was your country you worshipped, in the person of
your king ? Had you made it to be understood, that
in the delusion of this amiable error you had gone
further than your wise ancestors ; that you were re-
solved to resume your ancient privileges, whilst you
preserved the spirit of your ancient and your recent
loyalty and honour ; or if, diffident of yourselves, and
not clearly discerning the almost obliterated constitu-
tion of your ancestors, you had looked to your neigh-
bours in this land, who had kept alive the ancient
principles and models of the old common law of Europe,
meliorated and adapted to its present state — by follow-
ing wise examples you would have given new examples
of wisdom to the world. You would have rendered the
cause of liberty venerable in the eyes of every worthy
mind in every nation. You would have shamed des-
potism from the earth, by showing that freedom was
not only reconcilable, but, as when well disciplined it
is. auxiliary to law. You would have had an unoppres-

40 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

sive but a productive revenue. You would have had
a flourishing commerce to feed it. You would have had
a free constitution ; a potent monarchy ; a disciplined
army ; a reformed and venerated clergy ; a mitigated
but spirited nobility, to lead your virtue, not to overlay
it ; you would have had a liberal order of commons, to
emulate and to recruit that nobility ; you would have
had a protected, satisfied, laborious, and obedient
people, taught to seek and to recognize the happiness
that is to be found by virtue hi all conditions ; in which
consists the true moral equality of mankind, and not in
that monstrous fiction, which, by inspiring false ideas
and vain expectations into men destined to travel in
the obscure walk of laborious life, serves only to ag-
gravate and embitter that real inequality, which it
never can remove ; and which the order of civil life
establishes as much for the benefit of those whom it
must leave in an humble state, as those whom it is able
to exalt to a condition more splendid, but not more
happy. You had a smooth and easy career of felicity
and glory laid open to you, beyond anything recorded
in the history of the word ; but you have shown that
difficulty is good for man.

Compute your gains ; see what is got by those ex-
travagant and presumptuous speculations which have
taught your leaders to despise all their predecessors,
and all their contemporaries, and even to despise them-
selves, until the moment in which they became truly
despicable. By following those false lights, France has
bought undisguised calamities at a higher price than
any nation has purchased the most unequivocal bless-
ings ! France has bought poverty by crime ! France
has not sacrificed her virtue to her interest ; but she
has abandoned her interest, that she might prostitute
her virtue. All other nations have begun the fabric of
a new government, or the reformation of an old, by
establishing originally, or by enforcing with greater
exactness, some rites or other of religion. All other
people have laid the foundations of civil freedom in
severer manners and a system of a more austere and

FRENCH PRINCIPLES OF EQUALITY 41

masculine morality. France, when she let loose the
reins of regal authority, doubled the licence of a fero-
cious dissoluteness in manners, and of an insolent irre-
ligion in opinions and practices ; and has extended
through all ranks of life, as if she were communicating
some privilege, or laying open some secluded benefit,
all the unhappy corruptions that usually were the
disease of wealth and power. This is one of the new
principles of equality in France.

France, by the perfidy of her leaders, has utterly
disgraced the tone of lenient counsel in the cabinets of
princes, and disarmed it of its most potent topics. She
has sanctified the dark, suspicious maxims of tyrannous
distrust ; and taught kings to tremble at (what will
hereafter be called) the delusive plausibilities of moral
politicians. Sovereigns will consider those, who advise
them to place an unlimited confidence in their people,
as subverters of their thrones ; as traitors who aim at
their destruction, by leading their easy good-nature,
under specious pretences, to admit combinations of
bold and faithless men into a participation of their
power. This alone (if there were nothing else) is an
irreparable calamity to you and to mankind. Remember
that your parliament of Paris told your king, that, in
calling the states together, he had nothing to fear but
the prodigal excess of their zeal in providing for the
support of the throne. It is right that these men
should hide their heads. It is right that they should
bear their part in the ruin which their counsel has
brought on their sovereign and their country. Such
sanguine declarations tend to lull authority asleep ; to
encourage it rashly to engage in perilous adventures of
untried policy ; to neglect those provisions, prepara-
tions and precautions, which distinguish benevolence
from imbecility ; and without which no man can
answer for the salutary effect of any abstract plan of
government or of freedom. For want of these, they
have seen the medicine of the state corrupted into its.
poison. They have seen the French rebel against a.
mild and lawful monarch, with more fury, outrage, and

42 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

insult, than ever any people has been known to rise
against the most illegal usurper, or the most sanguinary
tyrant. Their resistance was made to concession ;
their revolt was from protection ; their blow was
aimed at a hand holding out graces, favours, and
immunities.

This was unnatural. The rest is in order. They
have found their punishment in their success. Laws
overturned ; tribunals Subverted ; industry without
vigour ; commerce expiring ; the revenue unpaid, yet
the people impoverished ; a church pillaged, and a state
not relieved ; civil and military anarchy made the
constitution of the kingdom ; everything human and
divine sacrificed to the idol of public credit, and national
bankruptcy the consequence ; and, to crown all, the
paper securities of new, precarious, tottering power,
the discredited paper securities of impoverished fraud,
and beggared rapine, held out as a currency for the
support of the empire, in lieu of the two great recognized
species that represent the lasting, conventional credit
of mankind, which disappeared and hid themselves in
the earth from whence they came, when the principle
of property, whose creatures and representatives they
are, was systematically subverted.

Were all these dreadful things necessary ? Were
they the inevitable results of the desperate struggle of
determined patriots, compelled to wade through blood
and tumult, to the quiet shore of a tranquil and pros-
perous liberty ? No ! nothing like it. The fresh ruins
of France, which shock our feelings wherever we can
turn our eyes, are not the devastation of civil war ;
they are the sad but instructive monuments of rash
and ignorant counsel in time of profound peace. They
are the display of inconsiderate and presumptuous,
because unresisted and irresistible authority. The per-
sons who have thus squandered away the precious
treasure of their crimes, the persons who have made
this prodigal and wild waste of public evils (the last
stake reserved for the ultimate ransom of the state)
have met in their progress with little, or rather with no

THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 43

opposition at all. Their whole march was more like
a triumphal procession, than the progress of a war.
Their pioneers have gone before them, and demolished
and laid everything level at their feet. Not one drop
of their blood have they shed in the cause of the country
they have ruined. They have made no sacrifices to
their projects of greater consequence than their shoe-
buckles, whilst they were imprisoning their king,
murdering their fellow-citizens, and bathing in tears,
and plunging in poverty and distress, thousands of
worthy men and worthy families. Their cruelty has not
even been the base result of fear. It has been the effect
of their sense of perfect safety, in authorizing treasons,
robberies, rapes, assassinations, slaughters, and burn-
ings, throughout their harassed land. But the cause
of all was plain from the beginning.

This unforced choice, this fond election of evil, would
appear perfectly unaccountable, if we did not consider
the composition of the National Assembly ; I do not
mean its formal constitution, which, as it now stands,
is exceptionable enough, but the materials of which, in
a great measure, it is composed, which is of ten thousand
times greater consequence than all the formalities in
the world. If we were to know nothing of this assembly
but by its title and function, no colours could paint to
the imagination anything more venerable. In that
light the mind of an inquirer, subdued by such an awful
image as that of the virtue and wisdom of a whole people
collected into one focus, would pause and hesitate in con-
demning things even of the very worst aspect. Instead
of blamable, they would appear only mysterious. But
no name, no power, no function, no artificial institution
whatsoever, can make the men of whom any system
of authority is composed, any other than God, and
nature, and education, and their habits of life have
made them. Capacities beyond these the people have
not to give. Virtue and wisdom may be the objects
of their choice ; but their choice confers neither the
one nor the other on those upon whom they lay their
ordaining hands. They have not the engagement of

44 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

nature, they have not the promise of revelation for any
such powers.

After I had read over the list of the persons and
descriptions elected into the Tiers Etat, nothing which
they afterwards did could appear astonishing. Among
them, indeed, I saw some of known rank ; some of
shining talents ; but of any practical experience in the
state, not one man was to be found. The best were
only men of theory. But whatever the distinguished
few may have been, it is the substance and mass of the
body which constitutes its character, and must finally
determine its direction. In all bodies, those who will
lead, must also, in a considerable degree, follow. They
must conform their propositions to the taste, talent,
and disposition, of those whom they wish to conduct :
therefore, if an assembly is viciously or feebly composed
in a very great part of it, nothing but such a supreme
degree of virtue as very rarely appears in the world,
and for that reason cannot enter into calculation, will
prevent the men of talents disseminated through it
from becoming only the expert instruments of absurd
projects ! If, what is the more likely event, instead of
that unusual degree of virtue, they should be actuated
by sinister ambition, and a lust of meretricious glory,
then the feeble part of the assembly, to whom at first
they conform, becomes in its turn the dupe and instru-
ment of their designs. In this political traffic, the
leaders will be obliged to bow to the ignorance of their
followers, and the followers to become subservient to
the worst designs of their leaders.

To secure any degree of sobriety in the propositions
made by the leaders in any public assembly, they ought
to respect, in some degree perhaps to fear, those whom
they conduct. To be led any otherwise than blindly,
the followers must be qualified, if not for actors, at
least for judges ; they must also be judges of natural
weight and authority. Nothing can secure a steady
and moderate conduct in such assemblies, but that the
body of them should be respectably composed, in point
of condition in life, of permanent property, of education,

THE STATES-GENERAL 45

and of such habits as enlarge and liberalize the under-
standing.

In the calling of the states -general of France, the
first thing that struck me, was a great departure from
the ancient course. I found the representation for the
third estate composed of six hundred persons. They
were equal in number to the representatives of both
the other orders. If the orders were to act separately,
the number would not, beyond the consideration of the
expense, be of much moment. But when it became
apparent that the orders were to be melted down into
one, the policy and necessary effect of this numerous
representation became obvious. A very small deser-
tion from either of the two other orders must throw the
power of both into the hands of the third. In fact, the
whole power of the state was soon resolved into that
body. Its due composition became therefore of infinitely
the greater importance.

Judge, sir, of my surprise, when I found that a very
great proportion of the assembly (a majority, I believe,
of the members who attended) was composed of practi-
tioners in 1^he law. It was composed, not of distin-
guished magistrates, who had given pledges to their
country of their science, prudence, and integrity ; not
of leading advocates, the glory of the bar ; not of
renowned professors in universities ; — but for the far
greater part, as it must in such a number, of the inferior,
unlearned, mechanical, merely instrumental members of
the profession. There were distinguished exceptions ;
but the general composition was of obscure provincial
advocates, of stewards of petty local jurisdictions,
country attorneys, notaries, and the whole train of the
ministers of municipal litigation, the fomenters and
conductors of the petty war of village vexation. From
the moment I read the list, I saw distinctly, and very
nearly as it has happened, all that was to follow.

The degree of estimation in which any profession is
held becomes the standard of the estimation in which
the professors hold themselves. Whatever the personal
merits of many individual lawyers might have been,

and in many it was undoubtedly very considerable,
in that military kingdom no part of the profession had
been much regarded, except the highest of all, who
often united to their professional offices great family
splendour, and were invested with great power and
authority. These certainly were highly respected, and
even with no small degree of awe. The next rank was
not much esteemed ; the mechanical part was in a very
low degree of repute.

Whenever the supreme authority is vested in a body
so composed, it must evidently produce the consequence
of supreme authority placed in the hands of men not
taught habitually to respect themselves ; who had no
previous fortune in character at stake ; who could not
be expected to bear with moderation, or to conduct
with discretion, a power, which they themselves, more
than any others, must be surprised to find in their hands.
Who could natter himself that these men, suddenly,
and, as it were, by enchantment, snatched from the
humblest rank of subordination, would not be in-
toxicated with their unprepared greatness ? Who
could conceive that men, who are habitually meddling,
daring, subtle, active, of litigious dispositions, and un-
quiet minds, would easily fall back into their old con-
dition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, and un-
profitable chicane ? Who could doubt but that, at any
expense to the state, of which they understood nothing,
they must. pursue their private interests, which they
understood but too well ? It was not an event depend-
ing on chance or contingency. It was inevitable ; it
was necessary ; it was planted in the nature of things.
They must join (if their capacity did not permit them
to lead) in any project which could procure to them a
litigious constitution ; which could lay open to them
those innumerable lucrative jobs, which follow in the
train of all great convulsions and revolutions in the
state, and particularly in all great and violent permuta-
tions of property. Was it to be expected that they
would attend to the stability of property, whose exist-
ence had always depended upon whatever rendered

THE LEGAL ELEMENT 47

property questionable, ambiguous, and insecure ? Their
objects would be enlarged with their elevation, but their
disposition and habits, and mode of accomplishing their
designs, must remain the same.

Well ! but these men were to be tempered and
restrained by other descriptions, of more sober minds,
and more enlarged understandings. Were they then
to be awed by the super-eminent authority and awful
dignity of a handful of country clowns, who have seats
in that assembly, some of whom are said not to be able
to read and write ? and by not a greater number of
traders, who, though somewhat more instructed, and
more conspicuous in the order of society, had never
known anything beyond their counting-house ? No t
both these descriptions were more formed to be over-
borne and swayed by the intrigues and artifices of
lawyers, than to become their counterpoise. With
such a dangerous disproportion, the whole must needs
be governed by them. To the faculty of law was joined
a pretty considerable proportion of the faculty of medi-
cine. This faculty had not, any more than that of the
law, possessed in France its just estimation. Its pro-
fessors, therefore, must have the qualities of men not
habituated to sentiments of dignity. But supposing
they had ranked as they ought to do, and as with us
they do actually, the sides of sick-beds are not the
academies for forming statesmen and legislators. Then
came the dealers in stocks and funds, who must be eager,
at any expense, to change their ideal paper wealth for
the more solid substance of land. To these were joined
men of other descriptions, from whom as little know-
ledge of, or attention to, the interests of a great state
was to be expected, and as little regard to the stability
of any institution ; men formed to be instruments, not
controls. Such in general was the composition of the
Tiers Etat in the National Assembly ; in which was
scarcely to be perceived the slightest traces of what we
call the natural landed interest of the country.

We know that the British House of Commons, with-
out shutting its doors to any merit in any class, is, by

48 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

the sure operation of adequate causes, filled with every-
thing illustrious in rank, in descent, in hereditary and
in acquired opulence, in cultivated talents, in military,
civil, naval, and politic distinction, that the country
can afford. But supposing, what hardly can be sup-
posed as a case, that the House of Commons should be
composed in the same manner with the Tiers Etat in
France, would this dominion of chicane be borne with
patience, or even conceived without horror ? God
forbid I should insinuate anything derogatory to that
profession, which is another priesthood, administering
the rights of sacred justice. But whilst I revere men
in the functions which belong to them, and would do
as much as one man can do to prevent their exclusion
from any, I cannot, to natter them, give the lie to nature.
They are good and useful in the composition ; they
must be mischievous if they preponderate so as virtually
to become the whole. Their very excellence in their
peculiar functions may be far from a qualification for
others. It cannot escape observation, that when men
are too much confined to professional and faculty
habits, and, as it were, inveterate in the recurrent
employment of that narrow circle, they are rather
disabled than qualified for whatever depends on the
knowledge of mankind, on experience in mixed affairs,
on a comprehensive, connected view of the various,
complicated, external and internal interests, which go
to the formation of that multifarious thing called a
state.

After all, if the House of Commons were to have an
wholly professional and faculty composition, what is
the power of the House of Commons, circumscribed
and shut in by the immovable barriers of law, usages,
positive rules of doctrine and practice, counterpoised
by the House of Lords, and every moment of its exist-
ence at the discretion of the crown to continue, pro-
rogue, or dissolve us ? The power of the House of
Commons, direct or indirect, is indeed great ; and long
may it be able to preserve its greatness, and the spirit
belonging to true greatness, at the full ; and it will do

THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 49

so, as long as it can keep the breakers of law in India
from becoming the makers of law for England. The
power, however, of the House of Commons, when least
diminished, is as a drop of water in the ocean, compared
to that residing in a settled majority of your National
Assembly. That assembly, since the destruction of the
orders, has no fundamental law, no strict convention,
no respected usage to restrain it. Instead of finding
themselves obliged to conform to a fixed constitution,
they have a power to make a constitution which shall
conform to their designs. Nothing in heaven or upon
earth can serve as a control on them. What ought to
be the heads, the hearts, the dispositions, that are
qualified, or that dare, not only to make laws under a
fixed constitution, but at one heat to strike out a totally
new constitution for a great kingdom, and in every
part of it, from the monarch on the throne to the vestry
of a parish ? But — ' fools rush in where angels fear to
tread' In such a state of unbounded power, for un-
defined and undefinable purposes, the evil of a moral
and almost physical inaptitude of the man to the func-
tion, must be the greatest we can conceive to happen
in the management of human affairs.

Having considered the composition of the third estate
as it stood in its original frame, I took a view of the re-
presentatives of the clergy. There too it appeared that
full as little regard was had to the general security of
property, or to the aptitude of the deputies for their
public purposes, in the principles of their election. That
election was so contrived as to send a very large pro-
portion of mere country curates to the great and arduous
work of new-modelling a state ; men who had never
seen the state so much as in a picture ; men who knew
nothing of the world beyond the bounds of an obscure
village ; who, immersed in hopeless poverty, could
regard all property, whether secular or ecclesiastical,
with no other eye than that of envy ; among whom
must be many, who, for the smallest hope of the meanest
dividend in plunder, would readily join in any attempts
upon a body of wealth, in which they could hardly

BURKE. IV E

50 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

look to have any share, except in a general scramble.
Instead of balancing the power of the active chicaners
in the other assembly, these curates must necessarily
become the active coadjutors, or at best the passive in-
struments, of those by whom they had been habitually
yuided in their petty village concerns. They too could
hardly be the most conscientious of their kind who,
presuming upon their incompetent understanding, could
intrigue for a trust which led them from their natural
relation to their flocks, and their natural spheres of
action, to undertake the regeneration of kingdoms.
This preponderating weight, being ^added to the force
of the body of chicane in the Tiers Etat, completed that
momentum of ignorance, rashness, presumption, and
lust of plunder, which nothing has been able to resist.
To observing men it must have appeared from the
beginning that the majority of the third estate, in con-
junction with such a deputation from the clergy, as
I have described, whilst it pursued the destruction of
the nobility, would inevitably become subservient to
the worst designs of individuals in that class. In the
spoil and humiliation of their own order these in-
dividuals would possess a sure fund for the pay of their
new followers. To squander away the objects which
made the happiness of their fellows, would be to them
no sacrifice at all. Turbulent, discontented men of
quality, in proportion as they are puffed up with per-
sonal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own
order. One of the first symptoms they discover of
a selfish and mischievotis ambition, is a profligate dis-
regard of a dignity which they partake with others.
To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little
platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle
(the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first
link in the series by which we proceed towards a love
to our country, and to mankind. The interest of that
portion of social arrangement is a trust in the hands of
all those who compose it ; and as none but bad men
would justify it in abuse, none but traitors would barter
it away for their own personal advantage.

DEGENERATE MEN OF RANK 51

There were, in the time of our civil troubles in England
(I do not know whether you have any such in your
assembly in France), several persons, like the then Earl
of Holland, who by themselves or their families had
brought an odium on the throne, by the prodigal dis-
pensation of its bounties towards them, who afterwards
joined in the rebellions arising from the discontents of
which they were themselves the cause ; men who helped
to subvert that throne to which they owed, some of
them, their existence, others all that power which they
employed to ruin their benefactor. If any bounds are
set to the rapacious demands of that sort of people, or
that others are permitted to partake in the objects they
would engross, revenge and envy soon fill up the craving
void that is left in their avarice. Confounded by the
complication of distempered passions, their reason is
disturbed ; their views become vast and perplexed ;
to others inexplicable ; to themselves uncertain. They
find, on all sides, bounds to their unprincipled ambition
in any fixed order of things. But in the fog and haze
of confusion all is enlarged, and appears without any
limit.

When men of rank sacrifice all ideas of dignity to an
ambition without a distinct object, and work with low
instruments and for low ends, the whole composition
becomes low and base. Does not something like this
now appear in France ? Does it not produce something
ignoble and inglorious ? a kind of meanness in all
the prevalent policy ? a tendency in all that is done
to lower along with individuals all the dignity and im-
portance of the state ? Other revolutions have been
conducted by persons, who, whilst they attempted or
affected changes in the commonwealth, sanctified their
ambition by advancing the dignity of the people whose
peace they troubled. They had long views. They
aimed at the rule, not at the destruction of their country.
They were men of great civil, and great military talents,
and if the terror, the ornament of their age. They were
not like Jew brokers contending with each other who
could best remedy with fraudulent circulation and

E2

52 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

depreciated paper the wretchedness and ruin brought on
their country by their degenerate councils. The com-
pliment made to one of the great bad men of the old
stamp (Cromwell) by his kinsman, a favourite poet of
that time, shows what it was he proposed, and what
indeed to a great degree he accomplished in the success
of his ambition :

' Still as you rise, the state exalted too,
Finds no distemper whilst 'tis changed by you ;
Changed like the world's great scene, when without

noise
The rising sun night's vulgar lights destroys.'

These disturbers were not so much like men usurping
power, as asserting their natural place in society. Their
rising was to illuminate and beautify the world. Their
conquest over their competitors was by outshining
them. The hand that, like a destroying angel, smote
the country, communicated to it the force and energy
under which it suffered. I do not say (God forbid),
I do not say, that the virtues of such men were to be
taken as a balance to their crimes : but they were some
corrective to their effects. Such was, as I said, our
Cromwell. Such were your whole race of Guises,
Condes, and Colignis. Such the Richelieus, who in
more quiet times acted in the spirit of a civil war. Such,
as better men, and in a less dubious cause, were your
Henry IV and your Sully, though nursed in civil con-
fusions, and not wholly without some of their taint.
It is a thing to be wondered at, to see how very soon
France, when she had a moment to respire, recovered
and emerged from the longest and most dreadful civil
war that ever was known in any nation. Why ?
Because, among all their massacres, they had not slain
the mind in their country. A conscious dignity, a
noble pride, a generous sense of glory and emulation,
was not extinguished. On the contrary, it was kindled
and inflamed. The organs also of the state, however
shattered, existed. All the prizes of honour and virtue,
all the rewards, all the distinctions, remained. But

LEVELLING AND EQUALIZING 53

your present confusion, like a palsy, has attacked the
fountain of life itself. Every person in your country,
in a situation to be actuated by a principle of honour,
is disgraced and degraded, and can entertain no sensa-
tion of life, except in a mortified and humiliated in-
dignation. But this generation will quickly pass away.
The next generation of the nobility will resemble the
artificers and clowns, and money- jobbers, usurers, and
Jews, who will be always their fellows, sometimes their
masters. Believe me, sir, those, who attempt to level,
never equalize. In all societies, consisting of various
descriptions of citizens, some description must be upper-
most. The levellers therefore only change and pervert
the natural order of things ; they load the edifice of
society, by setting up in the air what the solidity of the
structure requires to be on the ground. The associa-
tions of tailors and carpenters, of which the republic
(of Paris, for instance) is composed, cannot be equal to
the situation, into which, by the worst of usurpations, an
usurpation on the prerogatives of nature, you attempt
to force them.

The Chancellor of France, at the opening of the states,
said, in a tone of oratorical flourish, that all occupations
were honourable. If he meant only that no honest
employment was disgraceful, he would not have gone
beyond the truth. But in asserting that anything is
honourable, we imply some distinction in its favour.
The occupation of a hair-dresser, or of a working tallow-
chandler, cannot be a matter of honour to any person —
to say nothing of a number of other more servile em-
ployments. Such descriptions of men ought not to
suffer oppression from the state ; but the state suffers
oppression, if such as they, either individually or collec-
tively, are permitted to rule. In this you think you
are combating prejudice, but you are at war with
nature 1.

1 Ecclesiasticus, chap, xxxviii. ver. 24, 25. ' The wisdom
of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure : and
he that hath little business shall become wise.' — ' How can

54 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

I do not, my dear sir, conceive you to be of that
sophistical, captious spirit, or of that uncandid dulness,
as to require, for every general observation or sentiment,
an explicit detail of the correctives and exceptions,
which reason will presume to be included in all the
general propositions which come from reasonable men.
You do not imagine, that I wish to confine power,
authority, and distinction to blood, and names, and titles.
No, sir. There is no qualification for government but
virtue and wisdom, actual or presumptive. Wherever
they are actually found, they have, in whatever state,
condition, profession or trade, the passport of heaven
to human place and honour. Woe to the country which
would madly and impiously reject the service of the
talents and virtues, civil, military, or religious, that are
given to grace and to serve it ; and would condemn to
obscurity everything formed to diffuse lustre and glory
around a state. Woe to that country too that, passing
into the opposite extreme, considers a low education,
a mean contracted view of things, a sordid, mercenary
occupation, as a preferable title to command. Every-
thing ought to be open ; but not indifferently to every
man. No rotation ; no appointment by lot ; no mode
of election operating in the spirit of sortition, or rota-
tion, can be generally good in a government conversant

he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and that glorieth
in the goad ; that driveth oxen ; and is occupied in their
labours ; and whose talk is of bullocks ? "

Ver. 27. ' So every carpenter and work-master that
laboureth night and day,' &c.

Ver. 33. ' They shall not be sought for in public counsel,
nor sit high in the congregation : they shall not sit on the
judge's seat, nor understand the sentence of judgment :
they cannot declare justice and judgment, and they shall
not be found where parables are spoken.'

Ver. 34. ' But they will maintain the state of the world.'

I do not determine whether this book be canonical, as
the Gallican Church (till lately) has considered it, or apo-
cryphal, as here it is taken. I am sure it contains a great
deal of sense and truth.

THE ROAD TO EMINENCE 55

in extensive objects. Because they have no tendency,
direct or indirect, to select the man with a view to the
duty, or to accommodate the one to the other. 1 do
not hesitate to say that the road to eminence and power,
from obscure condition, ought not to be made too easy,
nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit be the rarest
of all rare things, it ought to pass through some sort
of probation. The temple of honour ought to be seated
on an eminence. If it be opened through virtue, let it
be remembered too that virtue is never tried but by
some difficulty and some struggle.

Nothing is a due and adequate representation of a
state that does not represent its ability, as well as its pro-
perty. But as ability is a vigorous and active principle,
and as property is sluggish, inert and timid, it never can
be safe from the invasions of ability, unless it be, out of
all proportion, predominant in the representation. It
must be represented too in great masses of accumula-
tion, or it is not rightly protected. The characteristic-
essence of property, formed out of the combined prin-
ciples of its acquisition and conservation, is to be
unequal. The great masses therefore which excite
envy, and tempt rapacity, must be put out of the
possibility of danger. Then they form a natural ram-
part about the lesser properties in all their gradations.
The same quantity of property, which is by the natural
course of things divided among many, has not the same
operation. Its defensive power is weakened as it is
diffused. In this diffusion each man's portion is less
than what, in the eagerness of his desires, he may flatter
himself to obtain by dissipating the accumulations of
others. The plunder of the few would indeed give but
a share inconceivably small in the distribution to the
many. But the many are not capable of making this
calculation ; and those who lead them to rapine never
intend this distribution.

The power of perpetuating our property in our
families is one of the most valuable and interesting
circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends
the most to the perpetuation of society itself. It

56 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

makes our weakness subservient to our virtue ; it
grafts benevolence even upon avarice. The possessors
of family wealth, and of the distinction which attends
hereditary possession, (as most concerned hi it,) are
the natural securities for this transmission. With us
the House of Peers is formed upon this principle. It is
wholly composed of hereditary property and hereditary
distinction ; and made therefore the third of the legisla-
ture ; and, in the last event, the sole judge of all pro-
perty in all its subdivisions. The House of Commons
too, though not necessarily, yet in fact, is always so
composed, in the far greater part. Let those large
proprietors be what they will, and they have their
chance of being among the best, they are, at the very
worst, the ballast in the vessel of the commonwealth.
For though hereditary wealth, and the rank which goes
with it, are too much idolized by creeping sycophants,
and the blind, abject admirers of power, they are too
rashly slighted in shallow speculations of the petulant,
assuming, short-sighted coxcombs of philosophy. Some
decent, regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not
exclusive appropriation), given to birth, is neither un-
natural, nor unjust, nor impolitic.

It is said, that twenty-four millions ought to prevail
over two hundred thousand. True ; if the constitution
of a kingdom be a problem of arithmetic. This sort
of discourse does well enough with the lamp-post for
its second : to men who may reason calmly, it is
ridiculous. The will of the many, and their interest,
must very often differ ; and great will be the difference
when they make an evil choice. A government of
five hundred country attorneys and obscure curates is
not good for twenty-four millions of men, though it
were chosen by eight and forty millions ; nor is it the
better for being guided by a dozen of persons of quality,
who have betrayed their trust in order to obtain that
power. At present, you seem in everything to have
strayed out of the high road of nature. The property
of France does not govern it. Of course property is
destroyed, and rational liberty has no existence. All

A COLLECTION OF REPUBLICS 57

you have got for the present is a paper circulation, and
a stock -jobbing constitution : and, as to the future,
do you seriously think that the territory of France,
upon the republican system of eighty-three independent
municipalities (to say nothing of the parts that com-
pose them), can ever be governed as one body, or can
ever be set in motion by the impulse of one mind ?
When the National Assembly has completed its work,
it will have accomplished its ruin. These common-
wealths will not long bear a state of subjection to the
republic of Paris. They will not bear that this one
body should monopolize the captivity of the king, and
the dominion over the assembly calling itself national.
Each will keep its own portion of the spoil of the church
to itself ; and it will not suffer either that spoil, or
the more just fruits of their industry, or the natural
produce of then- soil, to be sent to swell the insolence,
or pamper the luxury of the mechanics of Paris. In
this they will see none of the equality, under the pretence
of which they have been tempted to throw off their
allegiance to their sovereign, as well as the ancient
constitution of their country. There can be no capital
city in such a constitution as they have lately made.
They have forgot that, when they framed democratic
governments, they had virtually dismembered their
country. The parson, whom they persevere in calling
king, has not power left to him by the hundredth part
sufficient to hold together this collection of republics.
The republic of Paris will endeavour indeed to complete
the debauchery of the army, and illegally to perpetuate
the assembly, without resort to its constituents, as
the means of continuing its despotism. It will make
efforts, by becoming the heart of a boundless paper
circulation, to draw everything to itself ; but in vain.
All this policy in the end will appear as feeble as it is
now violent.

If this be your actual situation, compared to the
situation to which you were called, as it were by the
voice of God and man, I cannot find it in my heart to
congratulate you on the choice you have made, or the

58 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

success which has attended your endeavours. I can
as little recommend to any other nation a conduct
grounded on such principles, and productive of such
effects. That I must leave to those who can see
further into your affairs than I am able to do, and who
best know how far your actions are favourable to their
•designs. The gentlemen of the Revolution Society,
who were so early in their congratulations, appear to
be strongly of opinion that there is some scheme of poli-
tics relative to this country, in which your proceedings
may, in some way be useful. For your Dr. Price, who
seems to have speculated himself into no small degree
of fervour upon this subject, addresses his auditors in
the following very remarkable words : ' I cannot con-
clude without recalling particularly to your recollection
a consideration which I have more than once alluded to,
and which probably your thoughts have been all along
anticipating ; a consideration with which my mind is
impressed more than I can express. I mean the con-
sideration of the favourableness of the present times to
all exertions in the, cause of liberty.'1

It is plain that the mind of this political preacher was
at the time big with some extraordinary design ; and
it is very probable that the thoughts of his audience,
who understood him better than I do, did all along run
before him in his reflection, and in the whole train of
consequences to which it led.

Before I read that sermon, I really thought I had
lived in a free country ; and it was an error I cherished,
because it gave me a greater liking to the country I lived
in. I was indeed aware, that a jealous, ever-waking
vigilance, to guard the treasure of our liberty, not only
from invasion, but from decay and corruption, was our
best wisdom and our first duty. However, I considered
that treasure rather as a possession to be secured, than
as a prize to be contended for. I did not discern how
the present time came to be so very favourable to all
exertions in the cause of freedom. The present time
differs from any other only by the circumstance of what
is doing in France. If the example of that nation is to

THE REVOLUTION SOCIETY 59

have an influence on this, I can easily conceive why
some of their proceedings which have an unpleasant
aspect, and are not quite reconcilable to humanity,
generosity, good faith, and justice, are palliated with
so much milky good-nature towards the actors, and
borne with so much heroic fortitude towards the sufferers.
It is certainly not prudent to discredit the authority of
an example we mean to follow. But allowing this, we
are led to a very natural question ; — What is that cause
of liberty, and what are those exertions in its favour, to
which the example of France is so singularly auspicious ?
Is our monarchy to be annihilated, with all the laws,
all the tribunals, and all the ancient corporations of the
kingdom ? Is every land-mark of the country to be done
away in favour of a geometrical and arithmetical
constitution ? Is the House of Lords to be voted
useless ? Is episcopacy to be abolished ? Are the
church lands to be sold to Jews and jobbers ; or given
to bribe new-invented municipal republics into a par-
ticipation in sacrilege ? Are all the taxes to be voted
grievances, and the revenue reduced to a patriotic con-
tribution, or patriotic presents ? Are silver shoe
buckles to be substituted in the place of the land-tax
and the malt-tax, for the support of the naval strength
of this kingdom ? Are all orders, ranks, and distinctions
to be confounded, that out of universal anarchy, joined
to national bankruptcy, three or four thousand demo-
cracies should be formed into eighty-three, and that
they may all, by some sort of unknown attractive
power, be organized into one ? For this great end is
the army to be seduced from its discipline and its fidelity,
first by every kind of debauchery, and then by the
terrible precedent of a donative in the increase of pay ?
Are the curates to be seduced from their bishops, by
holding out to them the delusive hope of a dole out of
the spoils of their own order ? Are the citizens of
London to be drawn from their allegiance by feeding
them at the expense of their fellow-subjects ? Is a
compulsory paper currency to be substituted in the
place of the legal coin of this kingdom ? Is what

60 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

remains of the plundered stock of public revenue to be
employed in the wild project of maintaining two
armies to watch over and to fight with each other ?
If these are the ends and means of the Revolution
Society, I admit they are well assorted ; and France
may furnish them for both with precedents in point.

I see that your example is held out to shame us.
I know that we are supposed a dull, sluggish race, ren-
dered passive by finding our situation tolerable, and
prevented by a mediocrity of freedom from ever
attaining to its full perfection. Your leaders in
France began by affecting to admire, almost to adore,
the British constitution ; but, as they advanced, they
came to look upon it with a sovereign contempt. The
friends of your National Assembly amongst us have
full as mean an opinion of what was formerly thought
the glory of their country. The Revolution Society
has discovered that the English nation is not free.
They are convinced that the inequality in our represen-
tation is a ' defect in our constitution so gross and
palpable, as to make it excellent chiefly in form and
theory V That a representation in the legislature of
a kingdom is not only the basis of all constitutional
liberty in it, but of ' all legitimate government ; that
without it a government is nothing but an usurpation ' ;
— that ' when the representation is partial, the kingdom
possesses liberty only partially; and if extremely partial,
it gives only a semblance ; and if not only extremely
partial, but corruptly chosen, it becomes a nuisance.'
Dr. Price considers this inadequacy of representation
as our fundamental grievance ; and though, as to the
corruption of this semblance of representation, he
hopes it is not yet arrived to its full perfection of
depravity, he fears that ' nothing will be done towards
gaining for us this essential blessing, until some great
abuse of power again provokes our resentment, or some
great calamity again alarms our fears, or perhaps till
the acquisition of a pure and equal representation by

1 ' Discourse on the Love of our Country,' 3rd edit. p. 39.

INADEQUATE REPRESENTATION 61

other countries, whilst we are mocked with the shadow,
kindles our shame.' To this he subjoins a note in
these words. ' A representation chosen chiefly by the
treasury, and a few thousands of the dregs of the people,
who are generally paid for their votes.'

You will smile here at the consistency of those demo-
cratists, who, when they are not on their guard, treat
the humbler part of the community with the greatest
contempt, whilst, at the same time, they pretend to
make them the depositories of all power. It would
require a long discourse to point out to you the many
fallacies that lurk in the generality and equivocal
nature of the terms ' inadequate representation.'
I shall only say here, in justice to that old-fashioned
constitution, under which we have long prospered,
that our representation has been found perfectly ade-
quate to all the purposes for which a representation of
the people can be desired or devised. I defy the enemies
of our constitution to show the contrary. To detail
the particulars in which it is found so well to promote
its ends, would demand a treatise on our practical
constitution. I state here the doctrine of the revo-
lutionists, only that you and others may see, what an
opinion these gentlemen entertain of the constitution
of their country, and why they seem to think that some
great abuse of power, or some great calamity, as giving
a chance for the blessing of a constitution according to
their ideas, would be much palliated to their feelings ;
you see why they are so much enamoured of your fair
and equal representation, which being once obtained
the same effects might follow. You see they con-
sider our House of Commons as only ' a semblance,'
' a form,' 'a theory,' ' a shadow,' 'a mockery,' perhaps
'a nuisance.'

These gentlemen value themselves on being syste-
matic ; and not without reason. They must therefore
look on this gross and palpable defect of representation,
this fundamental grievance (so they call it) as a thing
not only vicious in itself, but as rendering our whole
government absolutely illegitimate, and not at all better

62 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

than a downright usurpation. Another revolution, to
get rid of this illegitimate and usurped government,
would of course be perfectly justifiable, if not absolutely
necessary. Indeed their principle, if you observe it
with any attention, goes much further than to an
alteration in the election of the House of Commons ;
for, if popular representation, or choice, is necessary
to the legitimacy of all government, the House of Lords
is, at one stroke, bastardized and corrupted in blood.
That House is no representative of the people at all,
even in ' semblance or in form.' The case of the crown
is altogether as bad. In vain the crown may endeavour
to screen itself against these gentlemen by the authority
of the establishment made on the Revolution. The
Revolution which is resorted to for a title, on their
system, wants a title itself. The Revolution is built,
according to their theory, upon a basis not more solid
than our present formalities, as it was made by a House
of Lords, not representing anyone but themselves ; and
by a House of Commons exactly such as the present,
that is, as they term it, by a mere ' shadow and mockery
of representation.

Something they must destroy, or they seem to them-
selves to exist for no purpose. One set is for destroying
the civil power through the ecclesiastical ; another for
demolishing the ecclesiastic through the civil. They
are aware that the worst consequences might happen
to the public in accomplishing this double ruin of
church and state ; but they are so heated with their
theories, that they give more than hints, that this ruin,
with all the mischiefs that must lead to it and attend it,
and which to themselves appear quite certain, would
not be unacceptable to them, or very remote from
their wishes. A man amongst them of great authority,
and certainly of great talents, speaking of a supposed
alliance between church and state, says, ' perhaps we
must wait for the fatt of the civil powers before this most
unnatural alliance be broken. Calamitous no doubt
will that time be. But what convulsion in the political
world ought to be a subject of lamentation, if it be

THE RIGHTS OF MEN 63

attended with so desirable an effect ? ' You see with
what a steady eye these gentlemen are prepared to view
the greatest calamities which can befall their country.

It is no wonder therefore, that with these ideas of
everything in their constitution and government at
home, either in church or state, as illegitimate and
usurped, or, at best as a vain mockery, they look
abroad with an eager and passionate enthusiasm.
Whilst they are possessed by these notions, it is vain
to talk to them of the practice of their ancestors, the
fundamental laws of their country, the fixed form of
a constitution, whose merits are confirmed by the
solid test of long experience, and an increasing public
strength and national prosperity. They despise
experience as the wisdom of unlettered men ; and as
for the rest, they have wrought under ground a mine
that will blow up, at one grand explosion, all examples of
antiquity, all precedents, charters, and acts of parlia-
ment. They have ' the rights of men.' Against these
there can be no prescription ; against these no argu-
ment is binding : these admit no temperament, and
110 compromise : anything withheld from their full
demand is so much of fraud and injustice. Against
these their rights of men let no government look for
security in the length of its continuance, or in the
justice and lenity of its administration. The objection*
of these speculatists, if its forms do not quadrate with
their theories, are as valid against such an old and
beneficent government, as against the most violent
tyranny, or the greenest usurpation. They are always
at issue with governments, not on a question of abuse,
but a question of competency, and a question of title.
I have nothing to say to the clumsy subtlety of their
political metaphysics. Let them be their amusement
in the schools. — ' Ilia se jactet in auLa — Molus, et clause
ventorum carcere. regnet.' — But let them not break
prison to burst like a Levanter, to sweep the earth
with their hurricane, and to break up the fountains of
the great deep to overwhelm us.

Far am I from denying in theory, full as far is my

64 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

heart from withholding in practice (if I were of power
to give or to withhold) the real rights of men. In
denying their false claims of right, I do not mean to
injure those which are real, and are such as their pre-
tended rights would totally destroy. If civil society
be made for the advantage of man, all the advantages
for which it is made become his right. It is an institu-
tion of beneficence ; and law itself is only beneficence ;
acting by a rule. Men have a right to live by that rule ;
they have a right to do justice ; as between their fellows,
whether their fellows are in politic function or in or-
dinary occupation. They have a right to the fruits of
their industry ; and to the means of making their
industry fruitful. They have a right to the acquisitions
of their parents ; to the nourishment and improvement
of their offspring ; to instruction in life, and to conso-
lation in death. Whatever each man can separately
do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to
do for himself ; and he has a right to a fair portion of
all which society, with all its combinations of skill and
force, can do in his favour. In this partnership all men
have equal rights ; but not to equal things. He
that has but five shillings in the partnership, has as
good a right to it as he that has five hundred pounds
has to his larger proportion. But he has not a right to
an equal dividend in the product of the joint stock ;
and as to the share of power, authority, and direction
which each individual ought to have in the manage-
ment of the state, that I must deny to be amongst the
direct original rights of man in civil society ; for I have
in my contemplation the civil social man, and no other.
It is a thing to be settled by convention.

If civil society be the offspring of convention, that
convention must be its law. That convention must
limit and modify all the descriptions of constitution
which are formed under it. Every sort of legislature,
judicial, or executory power, are its creatures. They
can have no being in any other state of things ; and
how can any man claim, under the conventions of civil
society, rights which do not so much as suppose its

WISDOM OF GOVERNMENT 65

existence ? — rights which are absolutely repugnant to
it ? One of the first motives to civil society, and which
becomes one of its fundamental rules, is, that no man
should be judge, in his own cause. By this each person
has at once divested himself of the first fundamental
right of uncovenanted man, that is, to judge for himself
and to assert his own cause. He abdicates all right
to be his own governor. He inclusively, in a great
measure abandons the right of self-defence, the first
law of nature. Men cannot enjoy the rights of an
uncivil and of a civil state together. That he may
obtain justice, he gives up his right of determining
what it is in points the most essential to him. That
he may secure some liberty, he makes a surrender in
trust of the whole of it.

Government is not made in virtue of natural rights,
which may and do exist in total independence of it ; and
exist in much greater clearness, and in a much greater
degree of abstract perfection ; but their abstract per-
fection is their practical defect. By having a right to
everything, they want everything. Government is
a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human
wants. Men have a right that these wants should be
provided for by this wisdom. Among these wants is
to be reckoned the want, out of civil society, of a suffi-
cient restraint upon their passions. Society requires
not only that the passions of individuals should be sub-
jected, but that even in the mass and body, as well as
in the individuals, the inclinations of men should fre-
quently be thwarted, their will controlled, and their
passions brought into subjection. This can only be
done by a power out of themselves ; and not, in the exer-
cise of its function, subject to that will and to those
passions which it is its office to bridle and subdue. In
this sense the restraints on men, as well as their liberties,
are to be reckoned among their rights. But as the
liberties and the restrictions vary with times and
circumstances, and admit of infinite modifications, they
cannot be settled upon any abstract rule ; and nothing
is so foolish as to discuss them upon that principle.

BUBKK. IT P

66 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

The moment you abate anything from the full rights
of men, each to govern himself, and suffer any artificial,
positive limitation upon those rights, from that moment
the whole organization of government becomes a con-
sideration of convenience. This it is which makes the
constitution of a state, and the due distribution of its
powers, a matter of the most delicate and complicated
skill. It requires a deep knowledge of human nature
and human necessities, and of the things which facilitate
or obstruct the various ends, which are to be pursued
by the mechanism of civil institutions. The state is
to have recruits to its strength, and remedies to its
distempers. What is the use of discussing a man's
abstract right to food or medicine ? The question is
upon the method of procuring and administering
them. In that deliberation I shall always advise to
call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather
than the professor of metaphysics.

The science of constructing a commonwealth, or
renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other
experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is
it a short experience that can instruct us in that prac-
tical science ; because the real effects of moral causes
are not always immediate ; but that which in the first
instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter
operation ; and its excellence may arise even from the
ill effects it produces in the beginning. The reverse
also happens ; and very plausible schemes, with very
pleasing commencements, have often shameful and
lamentable conclusions. In states there are often some
obscure and almost latent causes, things which appear
at first view of little moment, on which a very great
part of its prosperity or adversity may most essentially
depend. The science of government being therefore
so practical in itself, and intended for such practical
purposes, a matter which requires experience, and even
more experience than any person can gain in his whole
life, however sagacious and observing he may be, it is
.with infinite caution that any man ought to venture
.upon pulling down an edifice, which has answered in

RENOVATING A COMMONWEALTH 67

any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of
society, or on building it up again, without having
models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes.

These metaphysic rights entering into common life,
like rays of light which pierce into a dense medium, are,
by the laws of nature, refracted from their straight line.
Indeed, in the gross and complicated mass of human
passions and concerns, the primitive rights of men
undergo such a variety of refractions and reflections,
that it becomes absurd to talk of them as if they con-
tinued in the simplicity of their original direction. The
nature of man is intricate ; the objects of society are
of the greatest possible complexity : and therefore no
simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable
either to man's nature, or to the quality of his affairs.
When I hear the simplicity of contrivance aimed at and
boasted of in any new political constitutions, I am at
no loss to decide that the artificers are grossly ignorant
of their trade, or totally negligent of their duty. The
simple governments are fundamentally defective, to
say no worse of them. If you were to contemplate
society in but one point of view, all these simple modes
of polity are infinitely captivating. In effect each
would answer its single end much more perfectly than
the more complex is able to attain all its complex
purposes. But it is better that the whole should be
imperfectly and anomalously answered, than that,
while some parts are provided for with great exactness,
others might be totally neglected, or perhaps materially
injured, by the over-care of a favourite member.

The pretended rights of these theorists are all
extremes : and in proportion as they are metaphysically
true, they are morally and politically false. The rights
of men are in a sort of middle, incapable of definition,
but not impossible to be discerned. The rights of men
in governments are their advantages ; and these are
often in balances between differences of good ; in com-
promises between good and evil, and sometimes between
evil and evil. Political reason is a computing principle ;
adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, morally,
» 2

68 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

and not metaphysically or mathematically, true moral
denominations.

By these theorists the right of the people is almost
always sophistically confounded with their power.
The body of the community, whenever it can come to
act, can meet with no effectual resistance ; but till
power and right are the same, the whole body of them
has no right inconsistent with virtue, and the first of
all virtues, prudence. Men have no right to what is
not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit ; for
though a pleasant writer said, Liceat perire poetis, when
one of them, in cold blood, is said to have leaped into
the flames of a volcanic revolution, Ardentem jrigidus
Etnam insiluit, I consider such a frolic rather as an
unjustifiable poetic licence, than as one of the franchises
of Parnassus ; and, whether he were poet, or divine, or
politician, that chose to exercise this kind of right,
I think that more wise, because more charitable thoughts
would urge me rather to save the man, than to preserve
his brazen slippers as the monuments of his folly.

The kind of anniversary sermons to which a great
part of what I write refers, if men are not shamed out
of their present course, in commemorating the fact,
will cheat many out of the principles, and deprive them
of the benefits of the Revolution they commemorate.
I confess to you, sir, I never liked this continual talk
of resistance, and revolution, or the practice of making
the extreme medicine of the constitution its daily bread.
It renders the habit of society dangerously valetudinary;
it is taking periodical doses of mercury sublimate, and
swallowing down repeated provocatives of cantharides
to our love of liberty.

This distemper of remedy, grown habitual, relaxes and
wears out, by a vulgar and prostituted use, the spring
of that spirit which is to be exerted on great occasions.
It was in the most patient period of Roman servitude
that themes of tyrannicide made the ordinary exercise
of boys at school — cum perimit scevos classis numerosa
tyrannos. In the ordinary state of things, it produces
in a country like ours the worst effects, even on the cause

MAGNIFICENT SPECULATIONS 69

of that liberty which it abuses with the dissoluteness of
an extravagant speculation. Almost all the high-bred
republicans of my time have, after a short space, become
the most decided, thorough-paced courtiers ; they soon
left the business of a tedious, moderate, but practical
resistance, to those of us whom, in the pride and
intoxication of their theories, they have slighted as not
much better than Tories. Hypocrisy, of course,
delights in the most sublime speculations ; for, never
intending to go beyond speculation, it costs nothing
to have it magnificent. But even in cases where rather
levity than fraud was to be suspected in these ranting
speculations, the issue has been much the same. These
professors, finding their extreme principles not applic-
able to cases which call only for a qualified, or, as I
may say, civil, and legal resistance, in such cases employ
no resistance at all. It is with them a war or a revolu-
tion, or it is nothing. Finding their schemes of politics
not adapted to the state of the world in which they
live, they often come to think lightly of all public
principle ; and are ready, on their part, to abandon for
a very trivial interest what they find of very trivial
value. Some, indeed, are of more steady and perse-
vering natures ; but these are eager politicians out of
parliament, who have little to tempt them to abandon
then* favourite projects. They have some change in
the church or state, or both, constantly in their view.
When that is the case, they are always bad citizens, and
perfectly unsure connexions. For, considering their
speculative designs as of infinite value, and the actual
arrangement of the state as of no estimation, they are,
at best, indifferent about it. They see no merit in the
good, and no fault in the vicious management of public
affairs ; they rather rejoice in the latter, as more
propitious to revolution. They see no merit or demerit
in any man, or any action, or any political principle,
any further than as they may forward or retard their
design of change ; they therefore take up, one day, the
most violent and stretched prerogative, and another
time the wildest democratic ideas of freedom, and pass

70 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

from the one to the other without any sort of regard to
cause, to person, or to party.

In France you are now in the crisis of a revolution,
and in the transit from one form of government to
another — you cannot see that character of men exactly
in the same situation in which we see it in this country.
With us it is militant ; with you it is triumphant ; and
you know how it can act when its power is commen-
surate to its will. I would not be supposed to confine
those observations to any description of men, or to
comprehend all men of any description within them —
No ! far from it. I am as incapable of that injustice, as
I am of keeping terms with those who profess principles
of extremes ; and who, under the name of religion,
teach little else than wild and dangerous politics. The
worst of these politics of revolution is this : they
temper and harden the breast, in order to prepare it
for the desperate strokes which are sometimes used in
extreme occasions. But as these occasions may never
arrive, the mind receives a gratuitous taint ; and the
moral sentiments suffer not a little, when no political
purpose is served by the depravation. This sort of
people are so taken up with their theories about the
rights of man, that they have totally forgotten his
nature. Without opening one new avenue to the
understanding, they have succeeded in stopping up
those that lead to the heart. They have perverted in
themselves, and in those that attend to them, all tho
well-placed sympathies of the human breast.

This famous sermon of the Old Jewry breathes
nothing but this spirit through all the political part.
Plots, massacres, assassinations, seem to some people
•a trivial price for obtaining a revolution. A cheap,
bloodless reformation, a guiltless liberty, appear flat
and vapid to their taste. There must be a great change
of scene ; there must be a magnificent stage effect ;
there must be a grand spectacle to rouse the imagination,
grown torpid with the lazy enjoyment of sixty years'
security, and the still unanimating repose of public
prosperity. The preacher found them all in the French

A 'TRIUMPH' IN FRANCE 71

Revolution. This inspires a juvenile warmth through
his whole frame. His enthusiasm kindles as he
advances ; and when he arrives at his peroration it is
in a full blaze. Then viewing, from the Pisgah of his
pulpit, the free, moral, happy, nourishing, and glorious
state of France, as in a bird-eye landscape of a promised
land, he breaks out into the following rapture :

' What an eventful period is this ! I am thankful that
I have lived to it ; I could almost say, Lord, now lettest
thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen
thy salvation. I have lived to see a diffusion of know-
ledge, which has undermined superstition and error. —
I have lived to see the rights of men better understood
than ever ; and nations panting for liberty which
seemed to have lost the idea of it. — I have lived to see
thirty millions of people, indignant and resolute, spurning
at slavery, and demanding liberty with an irresistible
voice. Their king led in triumph, and an arbitrary
monarch surrendering himself to his subjects V

Before I proceed further, I have to remark, that
Dr. Price seems rather to overvalue the great acquisi-
tions of light which he has obtained and diffused in this
age. The last century appears to me to have been
quite as much enlightened. It had, though in a different
place, a triumph as memorable at that of Dr. Price ;
• and some of the great preachers of that period partook
of it as eagerly as he has done in the triumph of France.
On the trial of the Rev. Hugh Peters for high treason,
it was deposed, that when King Charles was brought
to London for his trial, the Apostle of Liberty in that
day conducted the triumph. ' I saw,' says the witness,
' his majesty in the coach with six horses, and Peters

1 Another of these reverend gentlemen, who was witness
to some of the spectacles which Paris has lately exhibited,
expresses himself thus : — ' A king dragged in submissive
triumph by his conquering subjects is one of those appear-
ances of grandeur which seldom rise in the prospect of
human affairs, and which, during the remainder of my
life, I shall think of with wonder and gratification.' These
gentlemen agree marvellously in their feelings.

72 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

riding before the king triumphing.'' Dr. Price, when he
talks as if he had made a discovery, only follows a pre-
cedent ; for, after the commencement of the king's trial,
this precursor, the same Dr. Peters, concluding a long
prayer at the royal chapel at Whitehall (he had very
triumphantly chosen his place), said, ' I have prayed
and preached these twenty years ; and now I may say
with old Simeon, Lord, now iettest thou thy servant depart
in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation 1.' Peters
had not the fruits of his prayer ; for he neither departed
so soon as he wished, nor in peace. He became (what
I heartily hope none of his followers may be in this
country) himself a sacrifice to the triumph which he
led as pontiff. They dealt at the Restoration, perhaps,
too hardly with this poor good man. But we owe it to
his memory, and his sufferings, that he had as much
illumination, and as much zeal, and had as effectually
undermined all the superstition and error which might
impede the great business he was engaged in, as any who
follow and repeat after him in this age, which would
assume to itself an exclusive title to the knowledge of
the rights of men, and all the glorious consequences of
that knowledge.

After this sally of the preacher of the Old Jewry,
which differs only in place and time, but agrees per-
fectly with the spirit and letter of the rapture of 1648,
the Revolution Society, the fabricators of governments,
the heroic band of cashierers of monarchs, electors of
sovereigns, and leaders of kings in triumph, strutting
with a proud consciousness of the diffusion of know-
ledge, of which every member had obtained so large a
share in the donative, were in haste to make a generous
diffusion of the knowledge they had thus gratuitously
received. To make this bountiful communication, they
adjourned from the church in the Old Jewry, to the
London Tavern ; where the same Dr. Price, in whom
the fumes of his oracular tripod were not entirely eva-
porated, moved and carried the resolution, or address

1 State Trials, vol. ii. pp. 360, 363.

SHAME AND HORROR 73

of congratulation, transmitted by Lord Stanhope to the
National Assembly of France.

I find a preacher of the Gospel profaning the beautiful
and prophetic ejaculation, commonly called ' nunc
dimittis,' made on the first presentation of our Saviour
in the temple, and applying it, with an inhuman and
unnatural rapture, to the most horrid, atrocious, and
afflicting spectacle that perhaps ever was exhibited to
the pity and indignation of mankind. This ' leading
in triumph,' a thing in its best form unmanly and
irreligious, which fills our preacher with such unhallowed
transports, must shock, I believe, the moral taste of
every well-born mind. Several English were the
stupefied and indignant spectators of that triumph. It
was (unless we have been strangely deceived) a spectacle
more resembling a procession of American savages,
entering into Onondago, after some of their murders
called victories, and leading into hovels hung round
with scalps, their captives, overpowered with the
scoffs and buffets of women as ferocious as themselves,
much more than it resembled the triumphal pomp of
a civilized, martial nation ; — if a civilized nation, or
any men who had a sense of generosity, were capable
of a personal triumph over the fallen and afflicted.

This, my dear sir, was not the triumph of France.
I must believe that, as a nation, it overwhelmed you
with shame and horror. I must believe that the
National Assembly find themselves in a state of the
greatest humiliation in not being able to punish the
authors of this triumph, or the actors in it ; and that
they are in a situation in which any inquiry they may
make upon the subject must be destitute even of the
appearance of liberty or impartiality. The apology
of that assembly is found in their situation ; but when
we approve what they must bear, it is in us the de-
generate choice of a vitiated mind.

With a compelled appearance of deliberation, they
vote under the dominion of a stern necessity. They sit
in the heart, as it were, of a foreign republic : they
have their residence in a city whose constitution has

74 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

emanated neither from the charter of their king,
nor from their legislative power. There they are
surrounded by an army not raised either by the autho-
rity of their crown, or by their command ; and which,
if they should order to dissolve itself, would instantly
dissolve them. There they sit, after a gang of assassins
had driven away some hundreds of the members ;
whilst those who held the same moderate principles,
with more patience or better hope, continued every
day exposed to outrageous insults and murderous
threats. There a majority, sometimes real, sometimes
pretended, captive itself, compels a captive king to
issue as royal edicts, at third hand, the polluted nonsense
of their most licentious and giddy coffee-houses. It
is notorious that all their measures are decided before
they are debated. It is beyond doubt that under the
terror of the bayonet, and the lamp-post, and the torch
to their houses, they are obliged to adopt all the crude
and desperate measures suggested by clubs composed
of a monstrous medley of all conditions, tongues, and
nations. Among these are found persons, in com-
parison of whom Catiline would be thought scrupulous,
and Cethegus a man of sobriety and moderation. Nor
is it in these clubs alone that the public measures are
deformed into monsters. They undergo a previous
distortion in academies, intended as so many seminaries
for these clubs, which are set up in all the places of
public resort. In these meetings of all sorts, every
counsel, in proportion as it is daring, and violent, and
perfidious, is taken for the mark of superior genius.
Humanity and compassion are ridiculed as the fruits
of superstition and ignorance. Tenderness to indi-
viduals is considered as treason to the public. Liberty
is always to be estimated perfect as property is rendered
insecure. Amidst assassination, massacre, and con-
fiscation, perpetrated or meditated, they are forming
plans for the good order of future society. Embracing
in their arms the carcases of base criminals, and pro-
moting their relations on the title of their offences,
they drive hundreds of virtuous persons to the same

A FARCE OF DELIBERATION 75

end, by forcing them to subsist by beggary or by
. crime.

The assembly, their organ, acts before them the farce
of deliberation with as little decency as liberty. They
act like the comedians of a fair, before a riotous audience ;
they act amidst the tumultuous cries of a mixed mob
of ferocious men, and of women lost to shame, who,
according to their insolent fancies, direct, control,
applaud, explode them ; and sometimes mix and take
their seats amongst them ; domineering over them
with a strange mixture of servile petulance and proud
presumptuous authority. As they have inverted order
in all things, the gallery is in the place of the house. This
assembly, which overthrows kings and kingdoms, has
not even the physiognomy and aspect of a grave legisla-
tive body — nee color imperil, nee frons erat ulla senatus.
They have a power given to them, like that of the evil
principle, to subvert and destroy ; but none to con-
struct, except such machines as may be fitted for
further subversion and further destruction.

Who is it that admires, and from the heart is attached
to national representative assemblies, but must turn
with horror and disgust from such a profane burlesque,
and abominable perversion of that sacred institute ?
Lovers of monarchy, lovers of republics, must alike
abhor it. The members of your assembly must them-
selves groan under the tyranny of which they have all
the shame, none of the direction, and little of the profit.
I am sure many of the members who compose even the
majority of that body must feel as I do, notwith-
standing the applauses of the Revolution Society.
Miserable king ! miserable assembly ! How must
that assembly be silently scandalized with those of
their members, who could call a day which seemed to
blot the sun out of heaven, ' un beau jour ! ' * How
must they be inwardly indignant at hearing others, who
thought fit to declare to them, ' that the vessel of the
state would fly forward in her course towards regenera-

1 6th of October, 1789.

76 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

tion with more speed than ever,' from the stiff gale of
treason and murder, which preceded our preacher's
triumph ! What must they have felt, whilst, with
outward patience and inward indignation, they heard
of the slaughter of innocent gentlemen in their houses,
that ' the blood spilled was not the most pure ' ? What
must they have felt, when they were besieged by com-
plaints of disorders which shook their country to its
foundations, at being compelled coolly to tell the com-
plainants, that they were under the protection of the
law, and that they would address the king (the captive
king) to cause the laws to be enforced for their protection ;
when the enslaved ministers of that captive king had
formally notified to them, that there were neither law,
nor authority, nor power left to protect ? What must
they have felt at being obliged, as a felicitation on the
present new year, to request their captive king to forget
the stormy period of the last, on account of the great
good which he was likely to produce to his people ; to
the complete attainment of which good they adjourned
the practical demonstrations of their loyalty, assuring
him of their obedience, when he should no longer possess
any authority to command ?

This address was made with much good-nature and
affection, to be sure. But among the revolutions in
France must be reckoned a considerable revolution in
their ideas of politeness. In England we are said to
learn manners at second-hand from your side of the
water, and that we dress our behaviour in the frippery
of France. If so, we are still in the old cut ; and have
not so far conformed to the new Parisian mode of good-
breeding, as to think it quite in the most refined strain
of delicate 'compliment (whether in condolence or con-
gratulation) to say, to the most humiliated creature
that crawls upon the earth, that great public benefits
are derived from the murder of his servants, the
attempted assassination of himself and of his wife, and
the mortification, disgrace, and degradation, that he
has personally suffered. It is a topic of consolation
which our ordinary of Newgate would be too humane

SEIZURE OF THE KING 77

to use to a criminal at the foot of the gallows. I should
have thought that the hangman of Paris, now that he
is liberalized by the vote of the National Assembly, and
is allowed his rank and arms in the herald's college of
the rights of men, would be too generous, too gallant
a man, too full of the sense of his new dignity, to employ
that cutting consolation to any of the persons whom
the Use nation might bring under the administration of
his executive power.

A man is fallen indeed, when he is thus flattered.
The anodyne draught of oblivion, thus drugged, is well
calculated to preserve a galling wakefulness, and to
feed the living ulcer of a corroding memory. Thus to
administer the opiate potion of amnesty, powdered
with all the ingredients of scorn and contempt, is to
hold to his lips, instead of ' the balm of hurt minds,'
the cup of human misery full to the brim, and to force
him to drink it to the dregs.

Yielding to reasons, at least as forcible as those which
were so delicately urged in the compliment on the new
year, the King of France will probably endeavour to
forget these events and that compliment. But history,
who keeps a durable record of all our acts, and exercises
her awful censure over the proceedings of all sorts of
sovereigns, will not forget either those events, or the
era of this liberal refinement in the intercourse of man-
kind. History will record, that on the morning of the
6th of October, 1789, the King and Queen of France,
after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter,
lay down, under the pledged security of public faith, to
indulge nature in a few hours of respite, and troubled,
melancholy repose. From this sleep the queen was
first startled by the voice of the sentinel at her door,
who cried out to her to save herself by flight — that
this was the last proof of fidelity he could give — that
they were upon him, and he was dead. Instantly he
was cut down. A band of cruel ruffians and assassins,
reeking with his blood, rushed into the chamber of the
queen, and pierced with a hundred strokes of bayonets
and poniards the bed, from whence this persecuted

78 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

woman had but just time to fly almost naked, and,
through ways unknown to the murderers, had escaped
to seek refuge at the feet of a king and husband, not
secure of his own life for a moment.

This king, to say no more of him, and this queen, and
their infant children, (who once would have been the
pride and hope of a great and generous people,) were
then forced to abandon the sanctuary of the most
splendid palace in the world, which they left swimming
in blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed with scat-
tered limbs and mutilated carcases. Thence they were
conducted into the capital of their kingdom. Two
had been selected from the unprovoked, unresisted,
promiscuous slaughter, which was made of the gentle-
men of birth and family who composed the king's body-
guard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade of
an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly
dragged to the block, and beheaded in the great court of
the palace. Their hpads were stuck upon spears, and
led the procession ; whilst the royal captives who
followed in the tram were slowly moved along, amidst
the horrid yells, and shrilling screams, and frantic
dances, and infamous contumelies, and all the unutter-
able abominations of the furies of hell, in the abused
shapes of the vilest of women. After they had been
made to taste, drop by drop, more than the bitterness
of death, in the slow torture of a journey of twelve
miles, protracted to six hours, they were, under a guard,
composed of those very soldiers who had thus con-
ducted them through this famous triumph, lodged in
one of the old palaces of Paris, now converted into a
Bastile for kings.

Is this a triumph to be consecrated at altars ? to be
commemorated with grateful thanksgiving ? to be
offered to the Divine Humanity with fervent prayer
and enthusiastic ejaculation ? — These Theban and
Thracian orgies, acted in France, and applauded only
in the Old Jewry, I assure you, kindle prophetic
enthusiasm in the minds but of very few people in this
kingdom : although a saint and apostle, who may

THE BISHOPS THREATENED 79

have revelations of his own, and who has so completely
vanquished all the mean superstitions of the heart, may
incline to think it pious and decorous to compare it
with the entrance into the world of the Prince of Peace,
proclaimed in a holy temple by a venerable sage, and
not long before not worse announced by the voice of
angels to quiet the innocence of shepherds.

At first I was at a loss to account for this fit of un-
guarded transport. I knew, indeed, that the sufferings
of monarchs make a delicious repast to some sort of
palates. There were reflections which might serve to
keep this appetite within some bounds of temperance.
But when I took one circumstance into my considera-
tion, I was obliged to confess, that much allowance
ought to be made for the society, and that the tempta-
tion was too strong for common discretion ; I mean, the
circumstance of the lo Paean of the triumph, the
animating cry which called ' for all the BISHOPS to
be hanged on the lamp-posts V might well have
brought forth a burst of enthusiasm on the foreseen
consequences of this happy day. I allow to so much
enthusiasm some little deviation from prudence. I
allow this prophet to break forth into hymns of joy and
thanksgiving on an event which appears like the precur-
sor of the Millennium, and the projected fifth monarchy,
in the destruction of all Church establishments. There
was, however, (as in all human affairs there is,) in the
midst of this joy, something to exercise the patience of
these worthy gentlemen, and to try the long-suffering
of their faith. The actual murder of the king and
queen, and their child, was wanting to the other aus-
picious circumstances of this ' beautiful day.' The
actual murder of the bishops, though called for by so
many holy ejaculations, was also wanting. A group
of regicide and sacrilegious slaughter, was indeed boldly
sketched, but it was only sketched. It unhappily was
left unfinished, in this great history-piece of the mas-
sacre of innocents. What hardy pencil of a great

1 Tous les Eveques & la lanterne.

80 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

master, from this school of the rights of men, will finish
it, is to be seen hereafter. The age has not yet the
complete benefit of that diffusion of knowledge that has
undermined superstition and error ; and the King of
France wants another object or two, to consign to
oblivion, in consideration of all the good which is to
arise from his own sufferings, and the patriotic crimes
of an enlightened age '.

1 It is proper here to refer to a letter written upon this
subject by an eye-witness. That eye-witness was one of
the most honest, intelligent, and eloquent members of
the National Assembly, one of the most active and zealous
reformers of the state. He was obliged to secede from
the assembly ; and he afterwards became a voluntary
exile, on account of the horrors of this pious triumph, and
the dispositions of men, who, profiting of crimes, if not
causing them, have taken the lead in public affairs.

Extract of M. de Lolly TottendaTs Second Letter to a Friend.
' Parlons du parti que j'ai pris ; il est bien Justine dans
ma conscience. — Ni cette ville coupable, ni cette assemblee
plus coupable encore, ne meritoient que me justifie ; mais
j'ai a cceur que vous, et les personnes qui pensent comme
vous, ne me condarnnent pas. — Ma sante, je vous jure,
me rendoit mes fonctions impossibles ; mais meme en les
mettant de c&te il a ete au-dessus de mes forces de sup-
porter plus longtems 1'horreur que me causoit ce sang, —
ces tetes — cette reine presque egorgee, ce roi — amene esdave,
— entrant a Paris, au milieu de ses assassins, et precede de
t6tes de ses malheureux gardes — ces perfides janissaires,
ces assassins, ces femmes cannibales, ce cri de TOUS LES
EVEQUES A LA LANTERNS, dans le moment oil le roi entre
sa capitale avec deux eveques de son conseil dans sa
voiture — un coup de fusil, que j'ai vu tirer dans un des
carosses de la reine — M. Bailly appellant cela un beau jour
— 1'assemblee ayant declare froidement le matin, qu'il
n'etoit pas de sa dignite d'aller toute entiere environner
le roi — M. Mirabeau disant impunement dans cette assem-
blee que le vaisseau de 1'etat, loin d'etre arrete dans sa
course, s'elanceroit avec plus de rapidite que jamais vers
sa regeneration — M. Barnave, riant avec lui, quand dcs

KING LOUIS 81

Although this work of our new light and knowledge
did not go to the length that in all probability it was
intended it should be carried, yet I must think that
such treatment of any human creatures must be shock-
ing to any but those who are made for accomplishing
revolutions. But I cannot stop here. Influenced by

flota de sang couloient autour de nous — le vertueux
Mourner * echappant par miracle a vingt assassins, qui
avoient voulu faire de sa tete un trophee de plus : Voila
ce qui me fit jurer de ne plus mettre le pied dans cette
caverns <F Antropophages [the National Assembly] on je
n'avois plus de force d'elever la voix, oil depuis six semaines
je 1'avois elevee en vain.

' Moi, Mounier, et tous les honnfites gens, ont pense que
le dernier effort a faire pour le bien etoit d'en sortir.
Aucune idee de crainte ne s'est approchee de moi. Je
rougirois de m'en defendre. J'avoia encore re$u sur la
route de la part de ce peuple, moins coupable que ceux
qui 1'ont enivre de fureur, des acclamations, et des applau-
dissements, dont d'autres auroient ete flattes, et qui m'ont
fait fremir. C'est a 1'indignation, c'est a 1'horreur, c'est
aux convulsions physiques, que le seul aspect du sang
me fait eprouver que j'ai cede. On brave une seule mort ;
on la brave plusieurs fois, quand elle peut etre utile. Mais
aucune puissance sous le ciel, mais aucune opinion publique
ou privee n'ont le droit de me condamner a souffrir inutile-
ment mille supplices par minute, et a perk de desespoir,
de rage, au milieu des triomphes, du crime que je n'ai pu
arreter. Us me proscriront, ils confisqueront mes biens.
Je labourerai la terre, et je ne les verrai plus. Voila ma
justification. Vous pourrez la lire, la montrer, la laisser
copier ; tant pia pour ceux qui ne la comprendront pas ;
ce ne sera alors moi qui auroit eu tort de leur donner.'

This military man had not so good nerves as the peace-
able gentlemen of the Old Jewry. — See Mons. Mourner's
narrative ef these transactions ; a man also of honour
and virtue, and talents, and therefore a fugitive.

* N.B. — M. Mounier was then speaker of the National
Assembly. He has since been obliged to live in exile,
though one of the firmest assertors of liberty.

BUKKE. IV Q

82 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

the inborn feelings of my nature, and not being illumi-
nated by a single ray of this new-sprung modern light,
I confess to you, sir, that the exalted rank of the persons
suffering, and particularly the sex, the beauty, and the
amiable qualities of the descendant of so many kings
and emperors, with the tender age of royal infants,
insensible only through infancy and innocence of the
cruel outrages to which their parents were exposed,
instead of being a subject of exultation, adds not a little
to my sensibility on that most melancholy occasion.

I hear that the august person, who was the principal
object of our preacher's triumph, though he supported
himself, felt much on that shameful occasion. As a
man, it became him to feel for his wife and his children,
and the faithful guards of his person, that were mas-
sacred in cold blood about him ; as a prince it became
him to feel for the strange and frightful transformation
of his civilized subjects, and to be more grieved for
them, than solicitous for himself. It derogates little
from his fortitude, while it adds infinitely to the honour
of his humanity. I am very sorry to say it, very sorry
indeed, that such personages are in a situation in which
it is not becoming in us to praise the virtues of the
great.

I hear, and I rejoice to hear, that the great lady, the
other object of the triumph, has borne that day (one
is interested that beings made for suffering should suffer
well), and that she bears all the succeeding days, that
she bears the imprisonment of her husband, and her
own captivity, and the exile of her friends, and the
insulting adulation of addresses, and the whole weight
of her accumulated wrongs, with a serene patience, in
a manner suited to her rank and race, and becoming the
offspring of a sovereign distinguished for her piety and
her courage ; that, like her, she has lofty sentiments ;
that she feels with the dignity of a Roman matron ;
that hi the last extremity she will save herself from the
last disgrace ; and that, if she must fall, she will fall
by no ignoble hand.

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the

MARIE ANTOINETTE 83

Queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles ;
and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly
seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her
just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the
elevated sphere she just began to move in, — glittering
like the morning-star, full of life, and splendour, and
joy. Oh ! what a revolution ! and what a heart I must
have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation
and that fall ! Little did I dream when she added
titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, re-
spectful love, that she should ever be obliged to cany
the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that
bosom ; little did I dream that I should have lived to
see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant
men, in a nation of men of honour, and of cavaliers.
I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from
their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened
her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That
of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has suc-
ceeded ; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for
ever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous
loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that
dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart,
which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of
an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the
cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment
and heroic enterprise is gone ! It is gone, that sensibility
of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain
like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated
ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under
which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its
grossness.

This mixed system of opinion and sentiment had ita
origin in the ancient chivalry ; and the principle, though
varied in its appearance by the varying state of human
affairs, subsisted and influenced through a long succes-
sion of generations, even to the time we live in. If it
should ever be totally extinguished, the loss I fear will
be great. It is this which has given its character to
modern Europe. It is this which has distinguished it
G 2

84 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

under all its forms of government, and distinguished it
to its advantage, from the states of Asia, and possibly
from those states which flourished in the most brilliant
periods of the antique world. It was this, which, with-
out confounding ranks, had produced a noble equality,
and handed it down through all the gradations of social
life. It was this opinion which mitigated kings into
companions, and raised private men to be fellows with
kings. Without force or opposition, it subdued the
fierceness of pride and power ; it obliged sovereigns to
submit to the soft collar of social esteem, compelled
stern authority to submit to elegance, and gave a
dominating vanquisher of laws to be subdued by man-
ners.

But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illu-
sions, which made power gentle, and obedience liberal,
which harmonized the different shades of life, and which,
by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the
sentiments which beautify and soften private society,
are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of
light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to
be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished
from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the
heart owns, and the understanding ratifies, as necessary
to cover the defects of our naked, shivering nature, and
to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be
exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion.

On this scheme of things, a king is but a man, a queen
is but a woman ; a woman is but an animal ; and an
animal not of the highest order. All homage paid to
the sex in general as such, and without distinct views,
is to be regarded as romance and folly. Regicide, and
parricide, and sacrilege, are but fictions of superstition,
corrupting jurisprudence by destroying its simplicity.
The murder of a king, or a queen, or a bishop, or a
father, are only common homicide ; and if the people
are by any chance, or in any way, gainers by it, a sort of
homicide much the most pardonable, and into which
we ought not to make too severe a scrutiny.

On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which

BARBAROUS PHILOSOPHY 85

is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understand-
ings, and which is as void of solid wisdom, as it is desti-
tute of all taste and elegance, laws are to be supported
only by their own terrors, and by the concern, which
each individual may find in them, from his own private
speculations, or can spare to them from his own private
interests. In the groves of their academy, at the end
of every visto, you see nothing but the gallows. No-
thing is left which engages the affections on the part of
the commonwealth. On the principles of this mechanic
philosophy, our institutions can never be embodied, if
I may use the expression, in persons ; so as to create
in us love, veneration, admiration, or attachment. But
that sort of reason which banishes the affections is in-
capable of filling their place. These public affections,
combined with manners, are required sometimes as
supplements, sometimes as correctives, always as aids
to law. The precept given by a wise man, as well as a
great critic, for the construction of poems, is equally
true as to states : — Non satis est pulchra esse poemata,
dulcia surito. There ought to be a system of manners
in every nation, which a well-formed mind would be
disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our
country ought to be lovely.

But power, of some kind or other, will survive the
shock in which manners and opinions perish ; and it
will find other and worse means for its support. The
usurpation which, in order to subvert ancient institu-
tions, has destroyed ancient principles, will hold power
by arts similar to those by which it has acquired it.
When the old feudal and chivalrous spirit of fealty,
which, by freeing kings from fear, freed both kings and
subjects from the precaution of tyranny, shall be extinct
in the minds of men, plots and assassinations will be
anticipated by preventive murder and preventive con-
fiscation, and that long roll of grim and bloody maxims,
which form the political code of all power not standing
on its own honour, and the honour of those who are to
obey it. Kings will be tyrants from policy, when sub-
jects are rebels from principle.

86 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken
away the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From
that moment ^we have no compass to govern us ; nor
can we know distinctly to what port we steer. Europe,
undoubtedly, taken in a mass, was in a flourishing con-
dition the day on which your Revolution was com-
pleted. How much of that prosperous state was owing
to the spirit of our old manners and opinions is not easy
to say ; but as such cases cannot be indifferent in their
operation, we must presume, that, on the whole, their
operation was beneficial.

We are but too apt to consider things in the state
in which we find them, without sufficiently adverting to
the causes by which they have been produced, and
possibly may be upheld. Nothing is more certain than
that our manners, our civilization, and all the good
things which are connected with manners, and with
civilization, have, in this European world of ours, de-
pended for ages upon two principles ; and were indeed
the result of both combined ; I mean the spirit of a
gentleman, and the spirit of religion. The nobility
and the clergy, the one by profession, the other by
patronage, kept learning in existence, even in the midst
of arms and confusions, and whilst governments were
rather in their causes, than formed. Learning paid
back what it received to nobility and to priesthood ;
and paid it with usury, by enlarging their ideas, and by
furnishing their minds. Happy if they had all con-
tinued to know their indissoluble union, and their
proper place ! Happy if learning, not debauched by
ambition, had been satisfied to continue the instructor,
and not aspired to be the master ! Along with its
natural protectors and guardians, learning will be cast
into the mire, and trodden down under the hoofs of a
swinish multitude.1

If , as I suspect, modern letters owe more than they

1 See the fate of Bailly and Condorcet, supposed to be
here particularly alluded to. Compare the circumstances
of the trial, and execution of the former with this pre-
diction.

A LIBERTY NOT LIBERAL 87

are always willing to own to ancient manners, so do
other interests which we value full as much as they are
worth. Even commerce, and trade, and manufacture,
the gods of our economical politicians, are themselves
perhaps but creatures ; are themselves but effects,
which, as first causes, we choose to worship. They
certainly grew under the same shade in which learning
flourished. They too may decay with their natural
protecting principles. With you, for the present at
least, they all threaten to disappear together. Where
trade and manufactures are wanting to a people, and
the spirit of nobility and religion remains, sentiment
supplies, and not always ill supplies, their place ; but
if commerce and the arts should be lost in an ex-
periment to try how well a statevmay stand without
these old fundamental principles, what sort of a thing
must be a nation of gross, stupid, ferocious, and, at the
same time, poor and sordid barbarians, destitute of
religion, honour, or manly pride, possessing nothing at
present, and hoping for nothing hereafter ?

I wish you may not be going fast, and by the shortest
cut, to that horrible and disgustful situation. Already
there appears a poverty of conception, a coarseness and
vulgarity in all the proceedings of the assembly and of
all their instructors. Their liberty is not liberal. Their
science is presumptuous ignorance. Their humanity is
savage and brutal.

It is not clear, whether in England we learned those
grand and decorous principles, and manners, of which
considerable traces yet remain, from you, or whether
you took them from us. But to you, I think, we trace
them best. You seem to me to be — gentis incunabula
nostrce. France has always more or less influenced
manners in England : and when your fountain is
choked up and polluted, the stream will not run long,
or not run clear with us, or perhaps with any nation.
This gives all Europe, in my opinion, but too close and
connected a concern in what is done in France. Excuse
me, therefore, if I have dwelt too long on the atrocious
spectacle of the 6th of October, 1789, or have given

88 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

too much scope to the reflections which have arisen in
my mind on occasion of the most important of all
revolutions, which may be dated from that day, I mean
a revolution in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions.
As things now stand, with everything respectable de-
stroyed without us, and an attempt to destroy within
us every principle of respect, one is almost forced to
apologize for harbouring the common feelings of men.

Why do I feel so differently from the Reverend Dr.
Price, and those of his lay flock, who will choose to
adopt the sentiments of his discourse ? — For this plain
reason — because it is natural I should ; because we are
so made, as to be affected at such spectacles with melan-
choly sentiments upon the unstable condition of mortal
prosperity, and the tremendous uncertainty of human
greatness ; because in those natural feelings we learn
great lessons ; because in events like these our passions
instruct our reason ; because when kings are hurled
from their thrones by the Supreme Director of this
great drama, and become the objects of insult to the
base, and of pity to the good, we behold such disasters
in the moral, as we should behold a miracle in the
physical order of things. We are alarmed into reflec-
tion ; our minds (as it has long since been observed)
are purified by terror and pity ; our weak, unthinking
pride is humbled under the dispensations of a mysterious
wisdom. Some tears might be drawn from me, if such
a spectacle were exhibited on the stage. I should be
truly ashamed of finding in myself that superficial,
theatric sense of painted distress, whilst I could exult
over it in real life. With such a perverted mind, I
could never venture to show my face at a tragedy.
People would think the tears that Garrick formerly,
or that Siddons not long since, have extorted from me,
were the tears of hypocrisy ; I should know them to be
the tears of folly.

Indeed the theatre is a better school of moral senti-
ments than churches where the feelings of humanity
are thus outraged. Poets who have to deal with an
audience not yet graduated in the school of the rights

THE CONCERN OF EUROPE 89

of men, and who must apply themselves to the moral
constitution of the heart, would not dare to produce
such a triumph as a matter of exultation. There, where
men follow their natural impulses, they would not bear
the odious maxims of a Machiavelian policy, whether
applied to the attainment of monarchical or democratic
tyranny. They would reject them on the modern,
as they once did on the ancient stage, where they
could not bear even the hypothetical proposition of
such wickedness in the mouth of a personated tyrant,
though suitable to the character he sustained. No
theatric audience in Athens would bear what has been
borne, in the midst of the real tragedy of this triumphal
day ; a principal actor weighing, as it were in scales
hung in a shop of horrors, — so much actual crime
against so much contingent advantage, — and after
putting in and out weights, declaring that the balance
was on the side of the advantages. They would not
bear to see the crimes of new democracy posted as in
a ledger against the crimes of old despotism, and the
book-keepers of politics finding democracy still in debt,
but by no means unable or unwilling to pay the balance.
In the theatre, the first intuitive glance, without any
elaborate process of reasoning, will show, that this
method of political computation would justify every
extent of crime. They would see, that on these prin-
ciples, even where the very worst acts were not per-
petrated, it was 'owing rather to the fortune of the
conspirators, than to their parsimony in the expenditure
of treachery and blood. They would see that criminal
means once tolerated are soon preferred. They present
a shorter cut to the object than through the highway
of the moral virtues. Justifying perfidy and murder
for public benefit, public benefit would soon become the
pretext, and perfidy and murder the end ; until rapa-
city, malice, revenge, and fear more dreadful than
revenge, could satiate their insatiable appetites. Such
must be the consequences of losing, in the splendour of
these triumphs of the rights of men, all natural sense
of wrong and right.

90 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

But the reverend pastor exults in this ' leading in
triumph,' because truly Louis XVI was ' an arbitrary
monarch ' ; that is, in other words, neither more nor
less than because he was Louis XVI, and because ho
had the misfortune to be born king of France, with the
prerogatives of which, a long line of ancestors, and a
long acquiescence of the people, without any act of his,
had put him in possession. A misfortune it has indeed
turned out to him, that he was born king of France.
But misfortune is not crime, nor is indiscretion always
the greatest guilt. I shall never think that a prince,
the acts of whose whole reign were a series of concessions
to his subjects, who was willing to relax his authority,
to remit his prerogatives, to call his people to a share
of freedom, not known, perhaps not desired by their
ancestors ; such a prince, though he should be sub-
jected to the common frailties attached to men and to
princes, though he should have once thought it necessary
to provide force against the desperate designs mani-
festly carrying on against his person, and the remnants
of his authority ; though all this should be taken into
consideration, I shall be led with great difficulty to
think he deserves the cruel and insulting triumph of
Paris, and of Dr. Price. I tremble for the cause of
liberty, from such an example to kings. I tremble for
the cause of humanity, in the unpunished outrages of
the most wicked of mankind. But there are some
people of that low and degenerate fashion of mind, that
they look up with a sort of complacent awe and admira-
tion to kings who know how to keep firm in their seat,
to hold a strict hand over their subjects, to assert their
prerogative, and, by the awakened vigilance of a severe
despotism, to guard against the very first approaches
of freedom. Against such as these they never elevate
their roice. Deserters from principle, listed with for-
tune, they never see any good in suffering virtue, nor
any crime in prosperous usurpation.

If it could have been made clear to me that the king
and queen of France (those I mean who were such before
the triumph) were inexorable and cruel tyrants, that

DEGRADATION OF THE MONARCH 91

they had formed a deliberate scheme for massacring
the National Assembly (I think I have seen something
like the latter insinuated in certain publications), I
should think their captivity just. If this be true, much
more ought to have been done, but done, in my opinion,
in another manner. The punishment of real tyrants
is a noble and awful act of justice ; and it has with
truth been said to be consolatory to the human mind.
But if I were to punish a wicked king, I should regard
the dignity in avenging the crime. Justice is grave and
decorous, and in its punishments rather seems to submit
to a necessity, than to make a choice. Had Nero, or
Agrippina, or Louis XI, or Charles IX, been the sub-
ject ; if Charles XII of Sweden, after the murder of
Patkul, or his predecessor Christina, after the murder
of Monaldeschi, had fallen into your hands, sir, or into
mine, I am sure our conduct would have been different.
If the French king, or king of the French (or by what-
ever name he is known in the new vocabulary of your
constitution), has in his own person, and that of his
queen, really deserved these una vowed, but unavenged,
murderous attempts, and those frequent indignities
more cruel than murder, such a person would ill deserve
even that subordinate executory trust, which I under-
stand is to be placed in him ; nor is he fit to be called
chief in a nation which he has outraged and oppressed.
A worse choice for such an office in a new common-
wealth, than that of a deposed tyrant, could not pos-
sibly be made. But to degrade and insult a man as
the worst of criminals, and afterwards to trust him in
your highest concerns, as a faithful, honest, and zealous
servant, is not consistent in reasoning, nor prudent in
policy, nor safe in practice. Those who could make
such an appointment must be guilty of a more flagrant
breach of trust than any they have yet committed
against the people. As this is the only crime in which
your leading politicians could have acted inconsistently,
I conclude that there is no sort of ground for these
horrid insinuations. I think no better of all the other
calumnies.

92 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

In England, we give no credit to them. We are
generous enemies : we are faithful allies. We spurn
from us with disgust and indignation the slanders of
those who bring us their anecdotes with the attestation
of the flower -de-luce on their shoulders. We have
Lord George Gordon fast in Newgate ; and neither his
being a public proselyte to Judaism, nor his having,
in his zeal against Catholic priests and all sorts of
ecclesiastics, raised a mob (excuse the term, it is still
in use here) which pulled down all our prisons, have
preserved to him a Liberty, of which he did not render
himself worthy by a virtuous use of it. We have rebuilt
Newgate, and tenanted the mansion. We have prisons
almost as strong as the Bastile for those who dare to
libel the queens of France. In this spiritual retreat,
let the noble libeller remain. Let him there meditate
on his Thalmud, until he learns a conduct more becom-
ing his birth and parts, and not so disgraceful to the
ancient religion to which he has become a proselyte ;
or until some persons from your side of the water, to
please your new Hebrew brethren, shall ransom him.
He may then be enabled to purchase, with the old
hoards of the synagogue, and a very small poundage,
on the long compound interest of the thirty pieces of
silver (Dr. Price has shown us what miracles compound
interest will perform in 1790 years), the lands which
are lately discovered to have been usurped by the
Gallican church. Send us your popish archbishop of
Paris, and we will send you our protestant Rabbin.
We shall treat the person you send us in exchange like
a gentleman and an honest man, as he is ; but pray let
him bring with him the fund of his hospitality, bounty,
and charity ; and, depend upon it, we shall never con-
fiscate a shilling of that honourable and pious fund, nor
think of enriching the treasury with the spoils of the
poor-box.

To tell you the truth, my dear sir, I think the honour
of our nation to be somewhat concerned in the dis-
claimer of the proceedings of this society of the Old
Jewry and the London Tavern. I have no man's proxy.

THE REAL OPINION IN ENGLAND 93

I speak only for myself, when I disclaim, as I do with
all possible earnestness, all communion with the actors
in that triumph, or with the admirers of it. When
I assert anything else, as concerning the people of
England, I speak from observation, not from authority ;
but I speak from the experience I have had in a pretty
extensive and mixed communication with the inhabi-
tants of this kingdom, of all descriptions and ranks,
and after a course of attentive observation, begun in
early life, and continued for nearly forty years. I have
often been astonished, considering that we are divided
from you but by a slender dyke of about twenty-four
miles, and that the mutual intercourse between the
two countries has lately been very great, to find how
little you seem to know of us. I suspect that this is
owing to your forming a judgment of this nation from
certain . publications which do, very erroneously, if
they do at all, represent the opinions and dispositions
generally prevalent in England. The vanity, restless-
ness, petulance, and spirit of intrigue, of several petty
cabals, who attempt to hide their total want of conse-
quence in bustle and noise and puffing and mutual
quotation of each other, makes you imagine that our
contemptuous neglect of their abilities is a general
mark of acquiescence in their opinions. No such thing.
I assure you. Because half a dozen grasshoppers under
a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink,
whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the
shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent,
pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are
the only inhabitants of the field ; that of course, they
are many in number ; or that, after all, they are other
than the little, shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though
loud and troublesome insects of the hour.

I almost venture to affirm that not one in a hundred
amongst us participates in the ' triumph ' of the Revolu-
tion Society. If the King and Queen of France, and
their children, were to fall into our hands by the chance
of war, in the most acrimonious of all hostilities (I de-
precate such an event, I deprecate such hostility), they

94 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

would be treated with another sort of triumphal entry
into London. We formerly have had a king of France
in that situation ; you have read how he was treated
by the victor in the field ; and in what manner he was
afterwards received in England. Four hundred years
have gone over us ; but I believe we are not materially
changed since that period. Thanks to our sullen re-
sistance to innovation, thanks to the cold sluggishness
of our national character, we still bear the stamp of our
forefathers. We have not (as I conceive) lost the
generosity and dignity of thinking of the fourteenth
century ; nor as yet have we subtilized ourselves into
savages. We are not the converts of Rousseau ; we
are not the disciples of Voltaire ; Helvetius has made
no progress amongst us. Atheists are not our preachers ;
madmen are not our lawgivers. We know that we have
made no discoveries ; and we think that no discoveries
are to be made, in morality ; nor many in the great
principles of government, nor in the ideas of liberty,
which were understood long before we were born,
altogether as well as they will be after the grave has
heaped its mould upon our presumption, and the silent
tomb shall have imposed its law on our pert loquacity.
In England we have not yet been completely embowelled
of our natural entrails : we still feel within us, and we
cherish and cultivate, those inbred sentiments which
are the faithful guardians, the active monitors of our
duty, the true supporters of all liberal and manly morals.
We have not been drawn and trussed, in order that we
may be filled, like stuffed birds in a museum, with chaff
and rags and paltry blurred shreds of paper about the
rights of man. We preserve the whole of our feelings
still native and entire, unsophisticated by pedantry and
infidelity. We have real hearts of flesh and blood beat-
ing in our bosoms. We fear God ; we look up with
awe to kings ; with affection to parliaments ; with
duty to magistrates ; with reverence to priests ; and
with respect to nobility 1. Why ? Because when such

1 The English are, I conceive, misrepresented in a letter

ENGLISH SENTIMENTS 95

ideas are brought before our minds, it is natural to be
so affected ; because all other feelings are false and
spurious, and tend to corrupt our minds, to vitiate our
primary morals, to render us unfit for rational liberty ;
and by teaching us a servile, licentious, and abandoned
insolence, to be our low sport for a few holidays, to
make us perfectly fit for, and justly deserving of,
slavery, through the whole course of our lives.

You see, sir, that in this enlightened age I am bold
enough to confess, that we are generally men of un-
taught feelings ; that, instead of casting away all our
old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable
degree, and, to take more shame to ourselves, we
cherish them because they are prejudices ; and the
longer they have lasted and the more generally they
have prevailed, the more we cherish them. We are
afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own
private stock of reason ; because we suspect that the
stock in each man is small, and that the individuals
would do better to avail themselves of the general bank
and capital of nations and of ages. Many of our men
of speculation, instead of exploding general prejudices,
employ their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom
which prevails in them. If they find what they seek,
and they seldom fail, they think it more wise to con-
tinue the prejudice, with the reason involved, than to
cast away the coat of prejudice, and to leave nothing
but the naked reason ; because prejudice, with its
reason, has a motive to give action to that reason, and
an affection which will give it permanence. Prejudice

published in one of the papers, by a gentleman thought
to be a dissenting minister. — When writing to Dr. Price
of the spirit which prevails at Paris, he says, ' The spirit
of the people in this place has abolished all the proud
distinctions which the king and nobles had usurped in their
minds ; whether they talk of the king, the noble, or the
priest, their whole language is that of the most enlightened
and liberal amongst the English.' If this gentleman means
to confine the terms enliglUened and liberal to one set of
men in England, it may be true. It is not generally bu.

96 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

is of ready application in the emergency ; it previously
engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and
virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the
moment of decision, sceptical, puzzled, and unresolved.
Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit : and not
a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice,
his duty becomes a part of his nature.

Your literary men, and your politicians, and so do
the whole clan of the enlightened among us, essentially
differ in these points. They have no respect for the
wisdom of others ; but they pay it off by a very full
measure of confidence in their own. With them it is
a sufficient motive to destroy an old scheme of things,
because it is an old one. As to the new, they are in
no sort of fear with regard to the duration of a building
run up in haste ; because duration is no object to those
who think little or nothing has been done before their
time, and who place all their hopes in discovery. They
conceive, very systematically, that all things which give
perpetuity are mischievous, and therefore they are at
inexpiable war with all establishments. They think that
government may vary like modes of dress, and with as
little ill effect ; that there needs no principle of attach-
ment, except a sense of present conveniency, to any
constitution of the state. They always speak as if they
were of opinion that there is a singular species of com-
pact between them and their magistrates, which binds
the magistrate, but which has nothing reciprocal in it,
but that the majesty of the people has a right to dissolve
it without any reason but its will. Their attachment to
their country itself is only so far as it agrees with some
of their fleeting projects ; it begins and ends with that
scheme of polity which falls in with their momentary
opinion.

These doctrines, or rather sentiments, seem pre-
valent with your new statesmen. But they are wholly
different from those on which we have always acted in
this country.

I hear it is sometimes given out in France, that what
is doing among you is after the example of England.

THE EXAMPLE OF ENGLAND 97

I beg leave to affirm that scarcely anything done with
you has originated from the practice or the prevalent
opinions of this people, either in the act or in the spirit of
the proceeding. Let me add that we are as unwilling
to learn these lessons from France, as we are sure that
we never taught them to that nation. The cabals here,
who take a sort of share in your transactions as yet
consist of but a handful of people. If unfortunately
by their intrigues, their sermons, their publications,
and by a confidence derived from an expected union
with the counsels and forces of the French nation, they
should draw considerable numbers into their faction,
and in consequence should seriously attempt anything
here in imitation of what has been done with you, the
event, I dare venture to prophesy, will be that, with
some trouble to their country, they will soon accomplish
their own destruction. This people refused to change
their law in remote ages from respect to the infalli-
bility of popes ; and they will not now alter it from a
pious implicit faith in the dogmatism of philosophers ;
though the former was armed with the anathema and
crusade, and though the latter should act with the
libel and the lamp-iron.

Formerly your affairs were your own concern only.
We felt for them as men ; but we kept aloof from them,
because we were not citizens of France. But when
we see the model held up to ourselves, we must feel as
Englishmen, and feeling, we must provide as English-
men. Your affairs, in spite of us, are made a part of
our interest ; so far at least as to keep at a distance
your panacea, or your plague. If it be a panacea, we
do not want it. We know the consequences of un-
necessary physic. If it be a plague ; it is such a plague
that the precautions of the most severe quarantine
ought to be established against it.

I hear on all hands that a cabal, calling itself
philosophic, receives the glory of many of the late pro-
ceedings ; and that their opinions and systems are the
true actuating spirit of the whole of them. I have
heard of no party in England, literary or political, at

HUUKF. IV H

98 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

any time known by such a description. It is not with
you composed of those men, is it ? whom the vulgar,
in their blunt, homely style, commonly call Atheists
and Infidels ? If it be, I admit that we too have had
writers of that description, who made some noise in
their day. At present they repose in lasting oblivion.
Who, born within the last forty years, has read one
word of Collins, and Toland, and Tindal, and Chubb,
and Morgan, and that whole race who called themselves
Freethinkers ? Who now reads Bolingbroke ? Who
ever read him through ? Ask the booksellers of Lon-
don what is become of all these lights of the world. In
as few years their few successors will go to the family
vault of ' all the Capulets.' But whatever they were,
or are, with us, they were and are wholly unconnected
individuals. With us they kept the common nature
of their kind, and were not gregarious. They never
acted in corps, or were known as a faction in the state,
nor presumed to influence in that name or character,
or for the purposes of such a faction, any of our
public concerns. Whether they ought so to exist, and
so be permitted to act, is another question. As such
cabals have not existed in England, so neither has the
spirit of them had any influence in establishing the
original frame of our constitution, or in any one of the
several reparations and improvements it has under-
gone. The whole has been done under the auspices,
and is confirmed by the sanctions, of religion and piety.
The whole has emanated from the simplicity of our
national character, and from a sort of native plainness
and directness of understanding, which for a long time
characterized those men who have successively obtained
authority among us. This disposition still remains ;
at least in the great body of the people.

We know, and, what is better, we feel inwardly, that
religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of
all good, and of all comfort \ In England we are so

1 Sit igitur hoc ab initio persuasum civibus, dominos esse
omnium rerum ac moderatores, deos ; eaque, quae gerantur,

ENGLISH INSTITUTIONS 99

convinced of this, that there is no rust of superstition,
with which the accumulated absurdity of the human
mind might have crusted it over in the course of ages,
that ninety-nine in a hundred of the people of England
would not prefer to impiety. We shall never be such
fools as to call in an enemy to the substance of any
system to remove its corruptions, to supply its defects,
or to perfect its construction. If our religious tenets
should ever want a further elucidation, we shall not
call on atheism to explain them. We shall not light
up our temple from that unhallowed fire. It will be
illuminated with other lights. It will be perfumed with
other incense, than the infectious stuff which is im-
ported by the smugglers of adulterated metaphysics.
If our ecclesiastical establishment should want a re-
vision, it is not avarice or rapacity, public or private,
that we shall employ for the audit, cr receipt, or
application of its consecrated revenue. Violently con-
demning neither the Greek nor the Armenian, nor, since
heats are subsided, the Roman system of religion, we
prefer the Protestant ; not because we think it has
less of the Christian religion in it, but because, in our
judgment, it has more. We are Protestants, not from
indifference, but from zeal.

We know, and it is our pride to know, that man is
by his constitution a religious animal ; that atheism
is against, not only our reason, but our instincts ; and
that it cannot prevail long. But if, in the moment of
riot, and in a drunken delirium from the hot spirit
drawn out of the alembic of hell, which in France is
now so furiously boiling, we should uncover our naked-
ness, by throwing off that Christian religion which has
hitherto been our boast and comfort, and one great
source of civilization amongst us, and among many

eoruni geri vi, ditione, ac numine ; eosdemque optime de
genere hominum merer! ; et qualis quisque sit, quid agat,
quid in se admittat, qua mente qua pietate colat religiones
intueri : piorum et impiorum habere rationem. His enim
rebus imbutae mentes baud sane abborrebunt ab utili et
a vera sententia.' Cic. de Legibus, 1. 2.
H2

100 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

other nations, we are apprehensive (being well aware
that the mind will not endure a void) that some un-
couth, pernicious and degrading superstition might
take place of it.

For that reason, before we take from our establish-
ment the natural, human means of estimation, and give
it up to contempt, as you have done, and in doing it
have incurred the penalties you well deserve to suffer,
we desire that some other may be presented to us in
the place of it. We shall then form our judgment.

On these ideas, instead of quarrelling with establish-
ments, as some do, who have made a philosophy and
a religion of their hostility to such institutions, we
cleave closely to them. We are resolved to keep an
established church, and established monarchy, an estab-
lished aristocracy, and an established democracy, each
in the degree it exists, and in no greater. I shall show
you presently how much of each of these we possess.

It has been the misfortune (not as these gentlemen
think it, the glory) of this age, that everything is to be
discussed, as if the constitution of our country were to be
always a subject rather of altercation than enjoyment.
For this reason, as well as for the satisfaction of those
among you (if any such you have among you) who may
wish to profit of examples, I venture to trouble you
with a few thoughts upon each of these establishments.
I do not think they were unwise in ancient Rome, who,
when they wished to new-model their laws, set com-
missioners to examine the best constituted republics
within their reach.

First, I beg leave to speak of our church establish-
ment, which is the first of our prejudices, not a pre-
judice destitute of reason, but involving in it profound
and extensive wisdom. I speak of it first. It is first,
and last, and midst in our minds. For, taking ground
on that religious system, of which we are now in posses-
sion, we continue to act on the early received, and uni-
formly continued sense of mankind. That sense not
only, like a wise architect, hath built up the august
fabric of states, but like a provident proprietor, to

ESTABLISHED RELIGION 101

preserve the structure from profanation and ruin, as
a sacred temple, purged from all the impurities of fraud,
and violence, and injustice, and tyranny, hath solemnly
and for ever consecrated the commonwealth, and all
that officiate in it. This consecration is made, that all
who administer in the government of men, in which
they stand in the person of God Himself, should have
high and worthy notions of their function and destina-
tion ; that their hope should be full of immortality ;
that they should not look to the paltry pelf of the mo-
ment, nor to the temporary and transient praise of the
vulgar, but to a solid, permanent existence, in the
permanent part of their nature, and to a permanent
fame and glory, in the example they leave as a rich
inheritance to the world.

Such sublime principles ought to be infused into
persons of exalted situations ; and religious establish-
ments provided, that may continually revive and en-
force them. Every sort of moral, every sort of civil,
every sort of politic institution, aiding the rational and
natural ties that connect the human understanding and
affections to the divine, are not more than necessary,
in order to build up that wonderful structure, Man ;
whose prerogative it is, to be in a great degree a creature
of his own making ; and who, when made as he ought
to be made, is destined to hold no trivial place in the
creation. But whenever man is put over men, as the
better nature ought ever to preside, in that case more
particularly, he should as nearly as possible be approxi-
mated to his perfection.

The consecration of the state, by a state religious
establishment, is necessary also to operate with a whole-
some awe upon free citizens ; because, in order to secure
their freedom, they must enjoy some determinate por-
tion of power. To them therefore a religion connected
with the state, and with their duty towards it, becomes
even more necessary than in such societies, where the
people, by the terms of their subjection, are confined
to private sentiments, . and the management of their
own family concerns. All persons possessing any por-

102 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

tion of power ought to be strongly and awfully im-
pressed with an idea that they act in trust ; and that
they are to account for their conduct in that trust to
the one great Master, Author and Founder of society.

This principle ought even to be more strongly im-
pressed upon the minds of those who compose the collec-
tive sovereignty, than upon those of single princes.
Without instruments, these princes can do nothing.
Whoever uses instruments, in finding helps, finds also
impediments. Their power is therefore by no means
complete ; nor are they safe in extreme abuse. Such
persons, however elevated by flattery, arrogance, and
sslf-opinion, must be sensible that, whether covered
or not by positive law, in some way or other they are
accountable even here for the abuse of their trust.
If they are not cut off by a rebellion of their people,
they may be strangled by the very janissaries kept for
their security against all other rebellion. Thus we
have seen the King of France sold by his soldiers for
en hi crease of pay. But where popular authority is
absolute and unrestrained, the people have an infinitely
greater, because a far better founded confidence in their
own power. They are themselves, in a great measure,
their own instruments. They are nearer to their
objects. Besides, they are less under responsibility to
one of the greatest controlling powers on earth, the
sense of fame and estimation. The share of infamy,
that is likely to fall to the lot of each individual in
public acts, is small indeed ; the operation of opinion
being in the inverse ratio to the number of those who
abuse power. Their own approbation of their own
acts has to them the appearance of a public judgment
in their favour. A perfect democracy is therefore the
most shameless thing in the world. As it is the most
shameless, it is also the most fearless. No man appre-
hends in his person that he can be made subject to
punishment. Certainly the people at large never ought :
for as all punishments are for example towards the con-
servation of the people at large* the people at large can
never become the subject of punishments by any

A PERFECT DEMOCRACY 103

human hand l. It is therefore of infinite importance
that they should not be suffered to imagine that their
will, any more than that of kings, is the standard of
right and wrong. They ought to be persuaded that
they are full as little entitled, and far less qualified,
with safety to themselves, to use any arbitrary power
whatsoever ; that therefore they are not, under a false
show of liberty, but, in truth, to exercise an unnatural,
inverted domination, tyrannically to exact from those
who officiate in the state, not an entire devotion to
their interest, which is their right, but an abject sub-
mission to their occasional will ; extinguishing thereby,
in all those who serve them, all moral principle, all
sense of dignity, all use of judgment, and all consistency
of character ; whilst by the very same process they
give themselves up a proper, a suitable, but a most
contemptible prey to the servile ambition of popular
sycophants, or courtly flatterers.

When the people have emptied themselves of all the
lust of selfish will, which without religion it is utterly
impossible they ever should, when they are conscious
that they exercise, and exercise perhaps in a higher
link of the order of delegation, the power, which to
be legitimate must be according to that eternal, im-
mutable law, in which will and reason are the same,
they will be more careful how they place power in base
and incapable hands. In their nomination to office,
they will not appoint to the exercise of authority, as
to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function ; not according
to their sordid, selfish interest, nor to their wanton
caprice, nor to their arbitrary will ; but they will confer
that power (which any man may well tremble to give
or to receive) on those only in whom they may discern
that predominant proportion of active virtue and wis-
dom, taken together and fitted to the charge, such as,
in the great and inevitable mixed mass of human im-
perfections and infirmities, is to be found.

When they are habitually convinced that no evil can

1 Quicquid multis peccantur inultum.

104 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

be acceptable, either in the act or the permission, to
him whose essence is good, they will be better able to
extirpate out of the minds of all magistrates, civil,
esclesiastical, or military, anything that bears the least
resemblance to a proud and lawless domination.

But one of the first and most leading principles on
which the commonwealth and the laws are consecrated,
is lest the temporary possessors and life-renters in it,
unmindful of what they have received from their an-
cestors, or of what is due to their posterity, should act
as if they were the entire masters ; that they should not
think it amongst their rights to cut off the entail or
commit waste on the inheritance, by destroying at their
pleasure the whole original fabric of their society ;
hazarding to leave to those who come after them a ruin
instead of a habitation — and teaching these successors
as little to respect their contrivances, as they had them-
selves respected the institutions of their forefathers.
By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as
often, and as much, and in as many ways, as there are
floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and con-
tinuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No
one generation could link with the other. Men would
become little better than the flies of a summer.

And first of all, the science of jurisprudence, the
pride of human intellect, which, with all its defects,
redundancies, and errors, is the collected reason of
ages, combining the principles of original justice with
the infinite variety of human concerns, as a heap of old
exploded errors, would be no longer studied. Personal
self-sufficiency and arrogance (the certain attendants
upon all those who have never experienced a wisdom
greater than their own) would usurp the tribunal. Of
course no certain laws, establishing invariable grounds
of hope and fear, would keep the actions of men
in a certain course, or direct them to a certain end.
Nothing stable in the modes of holding property, or
exercising function, could form a solid ground on which
any parent could speculate in the education of his off-
spring, or in a choice for their future establishment in

THE CONTRACT OF SOCIETY 105

the world. No principles would be early worked into
the habits. As soon as the most able instructor had
completed his laborious course of institution, instead
of sending forth his pupil, accomplished in a virtuous
discipline, fitted to procure him attention and respect,
in his place in society, he would find everything
altered ; and that he had turned out a poor creature
to the contempt and derision of the world, ignorant of
the true grounds of estimation. Who would insure a
tender and delicate sense of honour to beat almost with
the first pulses of the heart, when no man could know
what would be the test of honour in a nation, continually
varying the standard of its coin ? No part of life
would retain its acquisitions. Barbarism with regard
to science and literature, unskilfulness with regard to
arts and manufactures, would infallibly succeed to the
want of a steady education and settled principle ; and
thus the commonwealth itself would, in a few genera-
tions, crumble away, be disconnected into the dust and
powder of individuality, and at length dispersed to all
the winds of heaven.

To avoid therefore the evils of inconstancy and
versatility, ten thousand times worse than those of
obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have conse-
crated the state, that no man should approach to look
into its defects or corruptions but with due caution ;
that he should never dream of beginning its reforma-
tion by its subversion ; that he should approach to
the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with
pious awe, and trembling solicitude. By this wise
prejudice we are taught to look with horror on those
children of their country, who are prompt rashly to
hack that aged parent in pieces, and put him into the
kettle of magicians, in hopes that by their poisonous
weeds, and wild incantations, they may regenerate
the paternal constitution, and renovate their father's
life.

Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts
for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved
at pleasure — but the state ought not to be considered

106 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade
of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other
such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary
interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties.
It is to be looked on with other reverence ; because it is
not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross
animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature.
It is a partnership in all science ; a partnership in all art ;
a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.
As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained
in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only
between those who are living, but between those who
are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be
born. Each contract of each particular state is but
a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society,
linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting
the risible and invisible world, according to a fixed
compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds
all physical and all moral natures, each in their ap-
pointed place. This law is not subject to the will of
those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely
superior, are bound to submit their will to that law.
The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom
are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on
their speculations of a contingent improvement wholly
to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordi-
nate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial,
uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles.
It is the first and supreme necessity only, a necessity
that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount
to deliberation, that admits no discussion, and demands
no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy.
This necessity is no exception to the rule ; because this
necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical
disposition of things, to which man must be obedient
by consent of force : but if that which is only sub-
mission to necessity should be made the object of choice,
the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious
are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled, from this world
of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful

AUTHORITATIVE ENGLISH OPINION 107

penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord,
vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow.

These, my dear sir, are, were, and, I think, long will
be, the sentiments of not the least learned and reflecting
part of this kingdom. They, who are included in this
description, form their opinions on such grounds as
such persons ought to form them. The less inquiring
receive them from an authority, which those whom
Providence dooms to live on trust need not be ashamed
to rely on. These two sorts of men move in the same
direction, though in a different place. They both move
with the order of the universe. They all know or feel
this great ancient truth, ' Quod illi principi et praepo-
tenti Deo qui omnem hunc mundum regit, nihil eorum
quse quidem fiant in terris acceptius quam concilia et
ccetus hominum jure sociati quse civitates appellantur.'
They take this tenet of the head and heart, not from
the great name which it immediately bears, nor from
the greater from whence it is derived ; but from that
which alone can give true weight and sanction to any
learned opinion, the common nature and common rela-
tion of men. Persuaded that all things ought to be
done with reference, and referring all to the point of
reference to which all should be directed, they think
themselves bound, not only as individuals in the sanc-
tuary of the heart, or as congregated in that personal
capacity, to renew the memory of their high origin and
cast ; but also in their corporate character to perform
their national homage to the institutor, and author and
protector of civil society ; without which civil society
man could not by any possibility arrive at the perfec-
tion of which his nature is capable, nor even make a
remote and faint approach to it. They conceive that
He who gave our nature to be perfected by our virtue,
willed also the necessary means of its perfection. — He
willed therefore the state — He willed its connexion with
the source and original archetype of all perfection.
They who are convinced of this his will, which is the
law of laws, and the sovereign of sovereigns, cannot
think it reprehensible that this our corporate fealty and

108 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

homage, that this our recognition of a seigniory para-
mount, I had almost said this oblation of the state
itself, as a worthy offering on the high altar of universal
praise, should be performed as all public, solemn acts
are performed, in buildings, in music, in decoration, in
speech, in the dignity of persons, according to the cus-
toms of mankind, taught by their nature ; that is, with
modest splendour, with unassuming state, with mild
majesty and sober pomp. For those purposes they
think some part of the wealth of the country is as use-
fully employed as it can be in fomenting the luxury of
individuals. It is the public ornament. It is the public
consolation. It nourishes the public hope. The poorest
man finds his own importance and dignity in it, whilst
the wealth and pride of individuals at every moment
makes the man of humble rank and fortune sensible
of his inferiority, and degrades and vilifies his condition.
It is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature
and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges
of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature,
and may be more than equal by virtue, that this portion
of the general wealth of his country is employed and
sanctified.

I assure you I do not aim at singularity. I give you
opinions which have been accepted amongst us, from
very early times to this moment, with a continued and
general approbation, and which indeed are so worked
into my mind, that I am unable to distinguish what
I have learned from others from the results of my own
meditation.

It is on some such principles that the majority of the
people of England, far from thinking a religious national
establishment unlawful, hardly think it lawful to be
without one. In France you are wholly mistaken if
you do not believe us above all other things attached
to it, and beyond all other nations ; and when this
people has acted unwisely and unjustifiably in its favour
(as in some instances they have done most certainly)
in their very errors you will at least discover then* zeal.

This principle runs through the whole system of their

ATTACHMENT TO THE CHURCH 109

polity. They do not consider their church establish-
ment as convenient, but as essential to their state ;
not as a thing heterogeneous and separable ; something
added for accommodation ; what they may either keep
or lay aside, according to their temporary ideas of con-
venience. They consider it as the foundation of their
whole constitution, with which, and with every part
of which, it holds an indissoluble union. Church and
state are ideas inseparable in their minds, and scarcely
is the one ever mentioned without mentioning the
other.

Our education is so formed as to confirm and fix this
impression. Our education is in a manner wholly in
the hands of ecclesiastics, and in all stages from infancy
to manhood. Even when our youth, leaving schools
and universities, enter that most important period of
life which begins to link experience and study together,
and when with that view they visit other countries,
instead of old domestics whom we have seen as gover-
nors to principal men from other parts, three-fourths of
those who go abroad with our young nobility and gentle-
men are ecclesiastics ; not as austere masters, nor as
mere followers ; but as friends and companions of a
graver character, and not seldom persons as well born
as themselves. With them, as relations, they most
commonly keep up a close connexion through life. By
this connexion we conceive that we attach our gentle-
men to the church ; and we liberalize the church by an
intercourse with the leading characters of the country.

So tenacious are we of the old ecclesiastical modes
and fashions of institution, that very little alteration
has been made in them since the fourteenth or fifteenth
century : adhering in this particular, as in all things
else, to our old settled maxims, never entirely nor at
once to depart from antiquity. We found these old
institutions, on the whole, favourable to morality and
discipline ; and we thought they were susceptible of
amendment, without altering the ground. We thought
that they were capable of receiving and meliorating,
and above all of preserving, the accessions of science

110 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

and literature, as the order of Providence should succes-
sively produce them. And after all, with this gothic
and monkish education (for such it is in the ground-
work) we may put in our claim to as ample and as early
a share in all the improvements in science, in arts, and
in literature, which have illuminated and adorned the
modern world, as any other nation in Europe : we think
one main cause of this improvement was our not despis-
ing the patrimony of knowledge which was left us by
our forefathers.

It is from our attachment to a church establishment,
that the English nation did not think it wise to entrust
that great, fundamental interest of the whole to what
they trust no part of their civil or military public
service, that is, to the unsteady and precarious contri-
bution of individuals. They go further. They cer-
tainly never have suffered, and never will suffer, the
fixed estate of the church to be converted into a pension,
to depend on the treasury, and to be delayed, withheld,
or perhaps to be extinguished by fiscal difficulties :
which difficulties may sometimes be pretended for poli-
tical purposes, and are in fact often brought on by the
extravagance, negligence, and rapacity of politicians.
The people of England think that they have constitu-
tional motives, as well as religious, against any project
of turning their independent clergy into ecclesiastical
pensioners of state. They tremble for their liberty,
from the influence of a clergy dependent on the crown ;
they tremble for the public tranquillity from the dis-
orders of a factious clergy, if it were made to depend
upon any other than the crown. They therefore made
their church, like their king and their nobility, in-
dependent.

From the united considerations of religion and con-
stitutional policy, from their opinion of a duty to make
a sure provision for the consolation of the feeble and
the instruction of the ignorant, they have incorporated
and identified the estate of the church with the mass of
private property, of which the state is not the proprietor,
either for use or dominion, but the guardian only and

MEN OF LIGHT AND LEADING 111

the regulator. They have ordained that the provision
of this establishment might be as stable as the earth
on which it stands, and should not fluctuate with the
Euripus of funds and actions.

The men of England, the men, I mean, of light and
leading in England, whose wisdom (if they have any)
is open and direct, would be ashamed, as of a silly, de-
ceitful trick, to profess any religion in name, which, by
their proceedings, they appear to contemn. If by their
conduct (the only language that rarely lies) they seemed
to regard the great ruling principle of the moral and the
natural world, as a mere invention to keep the vulgar
in obedience, they apprehend that by such a conduct
they would defeat the politic purpose they have in
view. They would find it difficult to make others be-
lieve in a system to which they manifestly gave no
credit themselves. The Christian statesmen of this
land would indeed first provide for the multitude ;
because it is the multitude ; and is therefore, as such,
the first object in the ecclesiastical institution, and in
all institutions. They have been taught that the cir-
cumstance of the Gospel's being preached to the poor
was one of the great tests of its true mission. They
think, therefore, that those do not believe it, who do
not take care it should be preached to the poor. But
as they know that charity is not confined to any one
description, but ought to apply itself to all men who
have wants, they are not deprived of a due and anxious
sensation of pity to the distresses of the miserable great
They are not repelled through a fastidious delicacy, at
the stench of their arrogance and presumption, from a
medicinal attention to their mental blotches, and run-
ning sores. They are sensible that religious instruc-
tion is of more consequence to them than to any others ;
from the greatness of the temptation to which they are
exposed ; from the important consequences that attend
their faults ; from the contagion of their ill example ;
from the necessity of bowing down the stubborn neck
of their pride and ambition to the yoke of moderation
and virtue ; from a consideration of the fat stupidity

112 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

and gross ignorance concerning what imports men most
to know, which prevails at courts, and at the head of
armies, and in senates, as much as at the loom and in
the field.

The English people are satisfied, that to the great
the consolations of religion are as necessary as its in-
structions. They too are among the unhappy. They
feel personal pain and domestic sorrow. In these they
have no privilege, but are subject to pay their full con-
tingent to the contributions levied on mortality. They
want this sovereign balm under their gnawing cares and
anxieties, which, being less conversant about the limited
wants of animal life, range without limit, and are
diversified by infinite combinations in the wild and un-
bounded regions of imagination. Some charitable dole
is wanting to these, our often very unhappy brethren,
to fill the gloomy void that reigns in minds which have
nothing on earth to hope or fear ; something to relieve
in the killing languor and over-laboured lassitude of
those who have nothing to do ; something to excite an
appetite to existence in the palled satiety which attends
on all pleasures which may be bought, where nature is
not left to her own process, where even desire is anti-
cipated, and therefore fruition defeated by meditated
schemes and contrivances of delight ; and no interval,
no obstacle, is interposed between the wish and the
accomplishment.

The people of England know how little influence the
teachers of religion are likely to have with the wealthy
and powerful of long standing, and how much less with
the newly fortunate, if they appear in a manner no
way assorted to those with whom they must associate,
and over whom they must even exercise, in some cases,
something like an authority. What must they think of
that body of teachers, if they see it in no part above
the establishment of their domestic servants ? If the
poverty were voluntary, there might be some difference.
Strong instances of self-denial operate powerfully on
our minds ; and a man who has no wants has obtained
great freedom, and firmness, and even dignity. But

CHURCH REVENUES 113

as the mass of any description of men are but men, and
their poverty cannot be voluntary, that disrespect,
which attends upon all lay property, will not depart
from the ecclesiastical. Our provident constitution
has therefore taken care that those who are to instruct
presumptuous ignorance, those who are to be censors
over insolent vice, should neither incur their contempt,
nor live upon their alms ; nor will it tempt the rich to
a neglect of the true medicine of their minds. For these
reasons, whilst we provide first for the poor, and with
a parental solicitude, we have not relegated religion
(like something we were ashamed to show) to obscure
municipalities, or rustic villages. No ! we will have
her to exalt her mitred front in courts and parliaments.
We will have her mixed throughout the whole mass of
life, and blended with all the classes of society. The
people of England will show to the haughty potentates
of the world, and to their talking sophisters, that a free,
a generous, an informed nation honours the high magis-
trates of its church ; that it will not suffer the insolence
of wealth and titles, or any other species of proud pre-
tension, to look down with acorn upon what they look
up to with reverence ; nor presume to trample on that
acquired personal nobility, which they intend always
to be, and which often is, the fruit, not the reward,
(for what can be the reward ?) of learning, piety, and
virtue. They can see, without pain or grudging, an
archbishop precede a duke. They can see a bishop of
Durham, or a bishop of Winchester, in possession of
ten thousand pounds a year ; and cannot conceive why
it is in worse hands than estates to the like amount in
the hands of this earl, or that squire ; although it may
be true that so many dogs and horses are not kept by
the former, and fed with the victuals which ought to
nourish the children of the people. It is true, the whole
church revenue is not always employed, and to every
shilling, in charity ; nor perhaps ought it ; but some-
thing is generally so employed. It is better to cherish
virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will, even
with some loss to the object, than to attempt to make

114 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

men mere machines and instruments of a political
benevolence. The world on the whole will gain by a
liberty, without which virtue cannot exist.

When once the commonwealth has established the
estates of the church as property, it can, consistently,
hear nothing of the more or the less. Too much and
too little are treason against property. What evil can
arise from the quantity in any hand, whilst the supreme
authority has the full, sovereign superintendence over
this, as over any property, to prevent every species of
abuse ; and, whenever it notably deviates, to give to
it a direction agreeable to the purposes of its institution.

In England most of us conceive that it is envy and
malignity towards those who are often the beginners of
their own fortune, and not a love of the self-denial and
mortification of the ancient church, that makes some
look askance at the distinctions, and honours, and
revenues, which, taken from no person, are set apart
for virtue. The ears of the people of England are dis-
tinguishing. They hear these men speak broad. Their
tongue betrays them. Their language is in the patois
of fraud ; in the cant and gibberish of hypocrisy. The
people of England must think so, when these praters
affect to carry back the clergy to that primitive, evan-
gelic poverty, which, in the spirit, ought always to
exist in them (and in us too, however we may like it),
but in the thing must be varied, when the relation of
that body to the state is altered ; when manners, when
modes of life, when indeed the whole order of human
affairs has undergone a total revolution. We shall
believe those reformers then to be honest enthusiasts,
not, as now we think them, cheats and deceivers, when
we see them throwing their own goods into common,
and submitting their own person to the austere dis-
cipline of the early church.

With these ideas rooted in their minds, the commons
of Great Britain, in the national emergencies, will never
seek their resource from the confiscation of the estates
of the church and poor. Sacrilege and proscription are
not among the ways and means of our committee of

LAW OP SOCIAL UNION 115

supply. The Jews in Change-alley have not yet dared
to hint their hopes of a mortgage on the revenues be-
longing to the see of Canterbury. I am not afraid that
I shall be disavowed when I assure you, that there is
not one public man in this kingdom whom you would
wish to quote ; no not one, of any party or description,
who does not reprobate the dishonest, perfidious, and
cruel confiscation which the National Assembly has
been compelled to make of that property, which it was
their first duty to protect.

It is with the exultation of a little national pride I
tell you, that those amongst us who have wished to
pledge the societies of Paris in the cup of their abomina-
tions have been disappointed. The robbery of your
church has proved a security to the possessions of ours.
It has roused the people. They see with horror and
alarm that enormous and shameless act of proscription.
It has opened, and will more and more open, their eyes
upon the selfish enlargement of mind, and the narrow
liberality of sentiment of insidious men, which, com-
mencing in close hypocrisy and fraud, have ended in
open violence and rapine. At home we behold similar
beginnings. We are on our guard against similar
conclusions.

I hope we shall never be so totally lost to all sense of
the duties imposed upon us by the law of social union,
as, upon any pretext of public service, to confiscate the
goods of a single unoffending citizen. Who but a tyrant
(a name expressive of everything which can vitiate and
degrade human nature) could think of seizing on the
property of men, unaccused, unheard, untried, by whole
descriptions, by hundreds and thousands together ?
Who, that had not lost every trace of humanity, could
think of casting down men of exalted rank and sacred
function, some of them of an age to call at once for
reverence and compassion, of casting them down from
the highest situation in the commonwealth, wherein
they were maintained by their own landed property,
to a state of indigence, depression, and contempt ?

The confiscators truly have made some allowance to
i2

116 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

their victims from the scraps and fragments of their
own tables, from which they have been so harshly
driven, and which have been so bountifully spread for
a feast to the harpies of usury. But to drive men from
independence to live on alms, is itself great cruelty.
That which might be a tolerable condition to men in
one state of life, and not habituated to other things,
may, when all these circumstances are altered, be a
dreadful revolution ; and one to which a virtuous mind
would feel pain in condemning any guilt, except that
which would demand the life of the offender. But to
many minds this punishment of degradation and infamy
is worse than death. Undoubtedly it is an infinite
aggravation of this cruel suffering, that the persons who
were taught a double prejudice in favour of religion, by
education, and by the place they held in the administra-
tion of its functions, are to receive the remnants of the
property as alms from the profane and impious hands
of those who had plundered them of all the rest ; to
receive (if they are at all to receive) not from the
charitable contributions of the faithful, but from the
insolent tenderness of known and avowed atheism, the
maintenance of religion, measured out to them on the
standard of the contempt in which it is held ; and for
the purpose of rendering those who receive the allow-
ance vile, and of no estimation, in the eyes of mankind.
But this act of seizure of property, it seems, is a judg-
ment in law, and not a confiscation. They have, it
seems, found out in the academies of the Palais Royal,
and the Jacobins, that certain men had no right to the
possessions which they held under law, usage, the de-
cisions of courts, and the accumulated prescription of a
thousand years. They say that ecclesiastics are ficti-
tious persons, creatures of the state, whom at pleasure
they may destroy, and of course limit and modify in
every particular ; that the goods they possess are not
properly theirs, but belong to the state which created
the fiction ; and we are therefore not to trouble our-
selves with what they may suffer in their natural feelings
and natural persons, on account of what is done towards

ARGUMENTS OF TYRANNY 117

them in this their constructive character. Of what
import is it, under what names you injure men, and
deprive them of the just emoluments of a profession,
in which they were not only permitted but encouraged
by the state to engage ; and upon the supposed cer-
tainty of which emoluments they had formed the plan
of their lives, contracted debts, and led multitudes to
an entire dependence upon them ?

You do not imagine, sir, that I am going to compli-
ment this miserable distinction of persons with any long
discussion. The arguments of tyranny are as con-
temptible as its force is dreadful. Had not your con-
fiscators, by their early crimes, obtained a power which
secures indemnity to all the crimes of which they have
since been guilty, or that they can commit, it is not the
syllogism of the logician, but the lash of the executioner,
that would have refuted a sophistry which becomes an
accomplice of theft and murder. The sophistic tyrants
of Paris are loud in their declamations against the de-
parted regal tyrants, who in former ages have vexed the
world. They are thus bold, because they are safe from
the dungeons and iron cages of their old masters. Shall
we be more tender of the tyrants of our own time, when
we see them acting worse tragedies under our eyes ?
shall we not use the same liberty that they do, when
we can use it with the same safety ? when to speak
honest truth only requires a contempt of the opinion of
those whose actions we abhor ?

This outrage on all the rights of property was at first
covered with what, on the system of their conduct,
was the most astonishing of all pretexts — a regard to
national faith. The enemies to property at first pre-
tended a most tender, delicate, and scrupulous anxiety
for keeping the king's engagements with the public
creditor. These professors of the rights of men are so
busy in teaching others, that they have not leisure to
learn anything themselves ; otherwise they would have
known that it is to the property of the citizen, and not
to the demands of the creditor of the state, that the
first and original faith of civil society is pledged. The

118 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title,
superior in equity. The fortunes of individuals, whether
possessed by acquisition, or by descent, or in virtue of
a participation in the goods of some community, were
no part of the creditor's security, expressed or implied.
They never so much as entered nto his head when he
made his bargain. He well knew that the public,
whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can
pledge nothing but the public estate ; and it can have
no public estate, except in what it derives from a just
and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large.
This was engaged, and nothing else could be engaged,
to the public creditor. No man can mortgage his in-
justice as a pawn for his fidelity.

It is impossible to avoid some observation on the
contradictions caused by the extreme rigour and the
extreme laxity of this new public faith, which in-
fluenced in this transaction, and which influenced not
according to the nature of the obligation, but to the
description of the persons to whom it was engaged. No
acts of the old government of the kings of France are
held valid in the National Assembly, except its pe-
cuniary engagements ; acts of all others of the most
ambiguous legality. The rest of the acts of that royal
government are considered in so odious a light, that to
have a claim under its authority is looked on as a sort
of crime. A pension, given as a reward for service to
the state, is surely as good a ground of property as any
security for money advanced to the state. It is a
better ; for money is paid, and well paid, to obtain
that service. We have, however, seen multitudes of
people under this description in France, who had never
been deprived of their allowances by the most arbitrary
ministers, in the most arbitrary times, by this assembly
of the rights of men, robbed without mercy. They
were told, in answer to their claim to the bread earned
with their blood, that their services had not been
rendered to the country that now exists.

This laxity of public faith is not confined to those
unfortunate persons. The assembly, with perfect con-

LAXITY OF PUBLIC FAITH 119

sistency it must be owned, is engaged in a respectable
deliberation how far it is bound by the treaties made
with other nations under the former government, and
their committee is to report which of them they ought
to ratify, and which not. By this means they have
put the external fidelity of this virgin state on a par
with its internal.

It is not easy to conceive upon what rational principle
the royal government should not, of the two, rather
have possessed the power of rewarding service, and
making treaties, in virtue of its prerogative, than that
of pledging to creditors the revenue of the state, actual
and possible. The treasure of the nation, of all things,
has been the least allowed to the prerogative of the King
of France, or to the prerogative of any king in Europe.
To mortgage the public revenue implies the sovereign
dominion, in the fullest sense, over the public purse.
It goes far beyond the trust even of a temporary and
occasional taxation. The acts, however, of that dan-
gerous power (the distinctive mark of a boundless
despotism) have been alone held sacred. Whence arose
this preference given by a democratic assembly to a
body of property deriving its title from the most critical
and obnoxious of all the exertions of monarchical
authority ? Reason can furnish nothing to reconcile
inconsistency ; nor can partial favour be accounted
for upon equitable principles. But the contradiction
and partiality which admit no justification, are not the
less without an adequate cause ; and that cause I do
not think it difficult to discover.

By the vast debt of France a great monied interest
has insensibly grown up, and with it a great power.
By the ancient usages which prevailed in that kingdom,
the general circulation of property, and in particular
the mutual convertibility of land into money, and of
money into land, had always been a matter of difficulty.
Family settlements, rather more general and more strict
than they are in England, the jus retractus, the great
mass of landed property held by the crown, and, by a
maxim of the French law, held unalienably, the vast

120 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

estates of the ecclesiastic corporations, — all these had
kept the landed and monied interests more separated
in France, less miscible, and the owners of the two dis-
tinct species of property not so well disposed to each
other as they are in this country.

The monied property was long looked on with rather
an evil eye by the people. They saw it connected with
their distresses, and aggravating them. It was no less
envied by the old landed interests, partly for the same
reasons that rendered it obnoxious to the people, but
much more so as it eclipsed, by the splendour of an
ostentatious luxury, the unendowed pedigrees and naked
titles of several among the nobility. Even when the
nobility, which represented the more permanent landed
interest, united themselves by marriage (which some-
times was the case) with the other description, the
wealth, which saved the family from ruin, was supposed
to contaminate and degrade it. Thus the enmities and
heart-burnings of these parties were increased even by
the usual means by which discord is made to cease, and
quarrels are turned into friendship. In the meantime,
the pride of the wealthy men, not noble, or newly
noble, increased with its cause. They felt with resent-
ment an inferiority, the grounds of which they did not
acknowledge. There was no measure to which they
were not willing to lend themselves, in order to be re-
venged of the outrages of this rival pride, and to exalt
their wealth to what they considered as its natural rank
and estimation. They struck at the nobility through
the crown and the church. They attacked them parti-
cularly on the side on which they thought them the
most vulnerable, that is, the possessions of the church,
which, through the patronage of the crown, generally
devolved upon the nobility. The bishoprics, and the
great commendatory abbeys, were, with few exceptions,
held by that order.

In this state of real, though not always perceived,
warfare between the noble ancient landed interest, and
the new monied interest, the greatest, because the most
applicable, strength was in the hands of the latter.

THE ENCYCLOPEDISTS 121

The monied interest is in its nature more ready for any
adventure ; and its possessors more disposed to new
enterprises of any kind. Being of a recent acquisition
it falls in more naturally with any novelties. It is
therefore the kind of wealth which will be resorted to
by all who wish for change.

Along with the monied interest, a new description of
men had grown up, with whom that interest soon formed
a close and marked union ; I mean the political men
of letters. Men of letters, fond of distinguishing them-
selves, are rarely averse to innovation. Since the de-
cline of the life and greatness of Louis XIV, they were
not so much cultivated either by him, or by the regent,
or the successors to the crown ; nor were they engaged
to the courts by favours and emoluments so systematic-
ally as during the splendid period of that ostentatious
and not impolitic reign. What they lost in the old
court protection, they endeavoured to make up by join-
ing in a sort of incorporation of their own ; to which
the two academies of France, and afterwards the vast
undertaking of the Encyclopaedia, carried on by a
society of these gentlemen, did not a little contribute.

The literary cabal had some years ago formed some-
thing like a regular plan for the destruction of the Chris-
tian religion. This object they pursued with a degree
of zeal which hitherto had been discovered only in the
propagators of some system of piety. They were pos-
sessed with a spirit of proselytism in the most fanatical
degree ; and from thence, by an easy progress, with the
spirit of persecution according to their means *. What
was not to be done towards their great end by any
direct or immediate act, might be wrought by a longer
process through the medium of opinion. To command
that opinion, the first step is to establish a dominion
over those who direct it. They contrived to possess
themselves, with great method and perseverance, of all

1 This (down to the end of the first sentence in the next
paragraph) and some other parts here and there, were
inserted, on his reading the manuscript, by my lost Son.

122 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

the avenues to literary fame. Many of them indeed
stood high in the ranks of literature and science. The
world had done them justice ; and in favour of general
talents forgave the evil tendency of their peculiar prin-
ciples. This was true liberality ; which they returned
by endeavouring to confine the reputation of sense,
learning, and taste to themselves or their followers.
I will venture to say that this narrow, exclusive spirit
has not been less prejudicial to literature and to taste,
than to morals and true philosophy. Those atheistical
fathers have a bigotry of their own ; and they have
learnt to talk against monks with the spirit of a monk.
But in some things they are men of the world. The
resources of intrigue are called in to supply the defects
of argument and wit. To this system of literary mono-
poly was joined an unremitting industry to blacken
and discredit in every way, and by every means, all
those who did not hold to their faction. To those who
have observed the spirit of their conduct, it has long
been clear that nothing was wanted but the power of
carrying the intolerance of the tongue and of the pen
into a persecution which would strike at property,
liberty, and life.

The desultory and faint persecution carried on against
them, more from compliance with form and decency,
than with serious resentment, neither weakened their
strength, nor relaxed their efforts. The issue of the
whole was, that, what with opposition, and what with
success, a violent and malignant zeal, of a kind hitherto
unknown in the world, had taken an entire possession
of their minds, and rendered their whole conversation,
which otherwise would have been pleasing and instruc-
tive, perfectly disgusting. A spirit of cabal, intrigue,
and proselytism, pervaded all their thoughts, words,
and actions. And, as controversial zeal soon turns its
thoughts on force, they began to insinuate themselves
into a correspondence with foreign princes ; in hopes,
through their authority, which at first they nattered,
they might bring about the changes they had in view,
To them it was indifferent whether these changes were

INFLUENCE OF WRITERS 123

to be accomplished by the thunderbolt of despotism,
or by the earthquake of popular commotion. The
correspondence between this cabal and the late Bang
of Prussia will throw no small light upon the spirit of
all their proceedings 1. For the same purpose for which
they intrigued with princes, they cultivated, in a dis-
tinguished manner, the monied interest of France ; and
partly through the means furnished by those whose
peculiar offices gave them the most extensive and cer-
tain means of communication, they carefully occupied
all the avenues to opinion.

Writers, especially when they act in a body, and with
one direction, have great influence on the public mind ;
the alliance, therefore, of these writers with the monied
interest a had no small effect in removing the popular
odium and envy which attended that species of wealth.
These writers, like the propagators of all novelties, pre-
tended to a great zeal for the poor, and the lower orders,
whilst in their satires they rendered hateful, by every
exaggeration, the faults of courts, of nobility, and of
priesthood. They became a sort of demagogues. They
served as a link to unite, in favour of one object, ob-
noxious wealth to restless and desperate poverty.

As these two kinds of men appear principal leaders in
all the late transactions, their junction and politics will
serve to account, not upon any principles of law or of
policy, but as a cause, for the general fury with which
all the landed property of ecclesiastical corporations has
been attacked ; and the great care which, contrary to
their pretended principles, has been taken, of a monied
interest originating from the authority of the crown.
All the envy against wealth and power was artificially
directed against other descriptions of riches. On what
other principle than that which I have stated can we

1 1 do not choose to shock the feeling of the moral reader
with any quotation of their vulgar, base, and profane
language.

2 Their connexion with Turgot and almost all the people
of the finance.

124 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

account for an appearance so extraordinary and un-
natural as that of the ecclesiastical possessions, which
had stood so many succession of ages and shocks of
civil violences, and were guarded at once by justice,
and by prejudice, being applied to the payment of
debts, comparatively recent, invidious, and contracted
by a decried and subverted government ?

Was the public estate a sufficient stake for the public
debts ? Assume that it was not and that a loss must
be incurred somewhere. — When the only estate law-
fully possessed, and which the contracting parties had
in contemplation at the time in which their bargain
was made, happens to fail, who, according to the prin-
ciples of natural and legal equity, ought to be the suf-
ferer ? Certainly it ought to be either the party who
trusted, or the party who persuaded him to trust ; or
both ; and not third parties who had no concern with
the transaction. Upon any insolvency they ought to
suffer who were weak enough to lend upon bad security,
or they who fraudulently held out a security that was
not valid. Laws are acquainted with no other rules of
decision. But by the new institute of the rights of men,
the only persons who in equity ought to suffer, are the
only persons who are to be saved harmless : those are
to answer the debt who neither were lenders nor bor-
rowers, mortgagors nor mortgagees.

What had the clergy to do with these transactions ?
What had they to do with any public engagement
further than the extent of their own debt ? To that,
to be sure, their estates were bound to the last acre.
Nothing can lead more to the true spirit of the as-
sembly, which fits for public confiscation, with its new
equity, and its new morality, than an attention to their
proceeding with regard to this debt of the clergy. The
body of confiscators, true to that monied interest for
which they were false to every other, have found the
clergy competent to incur a legal debt. Of course they
declared them legally entitled to the property which
their power of incurring the debt and mortgaging the
estate implied ; recognizing the rights of those per-

THE CLERGY PLUNDERED 125

secuted citizens, in the very act in which they were
thus grossly violated.

If, as I said, any persons are to make good deficiencies
to the public creditor, besides the public at large, they
must be those who managed the agreement. Why,
therefore, are not the estates of all the comptrollers-
general confiscated ? l Why not those of the long suc-
cession of ministers, financiers, and bankers who have
been enriched whilst the nation was impoverished by
their dealings and their counsels ? Why is not the
estate of Mr. Laborde declared forfeited rather than of
the Archbishop of Paris, who has had nothing to do in
the creation or in the jobbing of the public funds ? Or,
if you must confiscate old landed estates in favour of
the money-jobbers, why is the penalty confined to one
description ? I do not know whether the expenses of
the Duke de Choiseul have left anything of the infinite
sums which he had derived from the bounty of his
master, during the transactions of a reign which con-
tributed largely, by every species of prodigality in war
and peace, to the present debt of France. If any such
remains, why is not this confiscated ? I remember to
have been in Paris during the time of the old govern-
ment. I was there just after the Duke d'Aiguillon had
been snatched (as it was generally thought) from the
block by the hand of a protecting despotism. He was
a minister, and had some concern in the affairs of that
prodigal period. Why do I not see his estate delivered
up to the municipalities in which it is situated ? The
noble family of Noailles have long been servants
(meritorious servants I admit) to the crown of France,
and have had of course some share in its bounties. Why
do I hear nothing of the application of their estates to
the public debt ? Why is the estate of the Duke de
Rochefoucault more sacred than that of the Cardinal de
Rochefoucault ? The former is, I doubt not, a worthy
person ; and (if it were not a sort of profaneness to talk
of the use, as affecting the title to property) he makes

1 All have been confiscated in their turn.

126 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

a good use of his revenues ; but it is no disrespect to
him to say, what authentic information well warrants
me in saying, that the use made of a property equally
valid, by his brother 1 the Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen
was far more laudable and far more public-spirited.
Can one hear of the proscription of such persons, and
the confiscation of their effects, without indignation and
horror ? He is not a man who does not feel such emo-
tions on such occasions. He does not deserve the
name of a free man who will not express them.

Few barbarous conquerors have ever made so terrible
a revolution in property. None of the heads of the
Roman factions, when they established ' crudelem illam
hastam ' in all their auctions of rapine, have ever set
up to sale the goods of the conquered citizen to such an
enormous amount. It must be allowed in favour of
those tyrants of antiquity, that what was done by them
could hardly be said to be done in cold blood. Their
passions were inflamed, their tempers soured, their
understandings confused, with the spirit of revenge,
with the innumerable reciprocated and recent inflictions
and retaliations of blood and rapine. They were driven
beyond all bounds of moderation by the apprehension
of the return of power with the return of property, to
the families of those they had injured beyond all hope
of forgiveness.

These Roman confiscators, who were yet only in the
elements of tyranny, and were not instructed in the
rights of men to exercise all sorts of cruelties on each
other without provocation, thought it necessary to
spread a sort of colour over their injustice. They con-
sidered the vanquished party as composed of traitors
who had borne arms, or otherwise had acted with
hostility against the commonwealth. They regarded
them as persons who had forfeited their property by
their crimes. With you, in your improved state of the
human mind, there was no such formality. You seized

1 Not his brother, nor any near relation ; but this
mistake does not affect the argument.

THE CLERICAL ESTATES 127

upon five millions sterling of annual rent, and turned
forty or fifty thousand human creatures out of their
houses, because ' such was your pleasure.' The tyrant
Harry VIII of England, as he was not better enlightened
than the Roman Marius's and Syllas, and had not
studied in your new schools, did not know what an
effectual instrument of despotism was to be found in
that grand magazine of offensive weapons, the rights of
men. When he resolved to rob the abbeys, as the club
of the Jacobins have robbed all the ecclesiastics, he
began by setting on foot a commission to examine into
the crimes and abuses which prevailed in those com-
munities. As it might be expected, his commission
reported truths, exaggerations, and falsehoods. But
truly or falsely it reported abuses and offences. How-
ever, as abuses might be corrected, as every crime of
persons does not infer a forfeiture with regard to com-
munities, and as property, in that dark age, was not
discovered to be a creature of prejudice, all those abuses
(and there were enow of them) were hardly thought
sufficient ground for such a confiscation as it was for
his purpose to make. He therefore procured the formal
surrender of these estates. All these operose proceed-
ings were adopted by one of the most decided tyrants
in the rolls of history, as necessary preliminaries, before
he could venture, by bribing the members of his two
servile Houses with a share of the spoil, and holding
out to them an eternal immunity from taxation, to
demand a confirmation of his iniquitous proceedings by
an act of parliament. Had fate reserved him to our
times, four technical terms would have done his busi-
ness, and saved him all this trouble ; he needed nothing
more than one short form of incantation, — ' Philosophy,
Light, Liberality, the Rights of Men.''

I can say nothing in praise of those acts of tyranny,
which no voice has hitherto ever commended under
any of their false colours ; yet in these false colours a
homage was paid by despotism to justice. The power
which was above all fear and all remorse was not set
above all shame. Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue

128 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

la not wholly extinguished in the heart ; nor will mo-
deration be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.

I believe every honest man sympathizes in his reflec-
tions with our political poet on that occasion, and will
pray to avert the omen whenever these acts of rapa-
cious despotism present themselves to his view or his
imagination :

. . . . ' May no such storm

Fall on our times, where ruin must reform.

Tell me (my Muse) what monstrous, dire offence,

What crimes could any Christian king incense

To such a rage ? Was't luxury, or lust ?

Was he. so temperate, so chaste, so just ?

Were these their crimes ? they were his own much more,

But wealth is crime enough to him that 's poor.' *

This same wealth, which is at all times treason and
Use nation to indigent and rapacious despotism, under
all modes of polity, was your temptation to violate pro-
perty, law, and religion, united in one object. But was

1 The rest of the passage is this :

' Who having spent the treasures of his crown,

Condemns their luxury to feed his own.

And yet this act, to varnish o'er the shame

Of sacrilege, must bear devotion's name.

Ho crime so bold, but would be understood

A real, or at least a seeming good ;

Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name,

And, free from conscience, is a slave to fame.

Thus he the Church at once protects, and spoils :

But princes' swords are sharper than their styles.

And thus to th' ages past he makes amends,

Their charity destroys, their faith defends.

Then did religion in a lazy cell,

In empty a6ry contemplation dwell ;

And like the block, unmoved lay ; but oure,

As much too active, like the stork devours.

Is there no temp'rate region can be known,

Betwixt their frigid, and our torrid zone !

M. NECKER'S BUDGET -1 • 129

the state of France so wretched and undone, that no
other resource but rapine remained to preserve its
existence ? On this point I wish to receive some in-
formation. When the states met, was the condition
of the finances of France such, that, after economizing
on principles of justice and mercy through all depart-
ments, no fair repartition of burdens upon all the orders
could possibly restore them ? If such an equal im-
position would have been sufficient, you well know it
might easily have been made. Mr. Necker, in the
budget which he laid before the orders assembled at
Versailles, made a detailed exposition of the state of
the French nation '.

If we give credit to him, it was not necessary to have
recourse to any new impositions whatsoever, to put the
receipts of France on a balance with its expenses. He
stated the permanent charges of all descriptions, in-
cluding the interest of a new loan of four hundred
millions, at 531,444,000 livres ; the fixed revenue at
475, 294,000, making the deficiency 56,150,000, or short
of 2,200,0002. sterling. But to balance it, he brought

Could we not wake from that lethargic dream,

But to be restless in a worse extreme ?

And for that lethargy was there no cure,

But to be cast into a calenture ?

Can knowledge have no bound, but must advance

So far, to make us wish for ignorance ?

And rather in the dark to grope our way,

Than, led by a false guide, to err, by day ?

Who sees these dismal heaps, but would demand

What barbarous invader sack'd the land ?

But when he hears, no Goth, no Turk did bring

This desolation, but a Christian king ;

When nothing, but the name of zeal, appears

"Twixt our best actions, and the worst of theirs ;

What does he think our sacrilege would spare,

When such th' effects of our devotion are ? '

COOPER'S HILL, by Sir JOHN DENHAM.
1 Rapport de Mons. le Directeur-General des Finances,
fait par ordre du Roi a Versailles. Mai 5, 1789.

BOEKK. IV K

130 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

forward savings and improvements of revenue (con-
sidered as entirely certain) to rather more than to the
amount of that deficiency ; and he concludes with
these emphatical words (p. 39), ' Quel pays, Messieurs,
que celui, ou, sans impots et avec de simples objets
inapperfus, on peut faire disparoitre un deficit qui a fait
tant de bruit en Europe.' As to the reimbursement,
the sinking of debt, and the other great objects of public
credit and political arrangement indicated in Monsieur
Necker's speech, no doubt could be entertained, but
that a very moderate and proportioned assessment on
the citizens without distinction would have provided
for all of them to the fullest extent of their demand.

If this representation of Mons. Necker was false, then
the assembly are in the highest degree culpable for hav-
ing forced the king to accept as his minister, and since
the king's deposition, for having employed, as ///'//•
minister, a man who had been capable of abusing so
notoriously the confidence of his master and their own ;
in a matter too of the highest moment, and directly
appertaining to his particular office. But if the repre-
sentation was exact (as having always, along with you,
conceived a high degree of respect for Mr. Necker, I
make no doubt it was), then what can be said in favour
of those, who instead of moderate, reasonable, and
general contribution, have in cold blood, and impelled
by no necessity, had recourse to a partial and cruel
confiscation ?

Was that contribution refused on a pretext of privi-
lege, either on the part of the clergy, or on that of the
nobility ? No certainly. As to the clergy, they even
ran before the wishes of the third order. Previous to
the meeting of the states, they had in all their instruc-
tions expressly directed their deputies to renounce
every immunity, which put them upon a footing dis-
tinct from the condition of their fellow-subjects, in
this renunciation tha clergy were even more explicit
than the nobility.

But let us suppose that the deficiency had remained
at the fifty-six millions, (or 2,200,000/. sterling) as at

TAXATION IN FRANCE 131

first stated by Mr. Necker. Let us allow that all the
resources he opposed to that deficiency were impudent
and groundless fictions ; and that the assembly (or their
lords of articles l at the Jacobins) were from thence
justified in laying the whole burden of that deficiency
on the clergy, — yet allowing all this, a necessity of
2,200,0(XM. sterling will not support a confiscation
to the amount of five millions. The imposition of
2,200,OOOZ. on the clergy, as partial, would have been
oppressive and unjust, but it would not have been
altogether ruinous to those on whom it was imposed ;
and therefore it would not have answered the real pur-
pose of the managers.

Perhaps persons, unacquainted with the state of
France, on hearing the clergy and the noblesse were
privileged in point of taxation, may be led to imagine
that, previous to the Revolution, these bodies had con-
tributed nothing to the state. This is a great mistake.
They certainly did not contribute equally with each
other, nor either of them equally with the commons.
They both, however, contributed largely. Neither
nobility nor clergy enjoyed any exemption from the
excise on consumable commodities, from duties of
custom, or from any of the other numerous indirect
impositions, which in France, as well as here, make so
very large a proportion of all payments to the public.
The noblesse paid the capitation. They paid also a
land-tax, called the twentieth penny, to the height
sometimes of three, sometimes of four shillings in the
pound ; both of them direct impositions of no light
nature, and no trivial produce. The clergy of the pro-
vinces annexed by conquest to France, (which in extent
make about an eighth part of the whole, but in wealth
a much larger proportion,) paid likewise to the capita-
tion and the twentieth penny, at the rate paid by the

1 In the constitution of Scotland, during the Stuart
reigns, a committee sat for preparing bills ; and none could
pass but those previously approved by them. This com-
mittee was called lords of articles.
K2

nobility. The clergy in the old provinces did not pay
the capitation ; but they had redeemed themselves at
the expense of about twenty-four millions, or a little
more than a million sterling. They were exempted
from the twentieths : but then they made free gifts ;
they contracted debts for the state ; and they were
subject to some other charges, the whole computed at
about a thirteenth part of their clear income. They
ought to have paid annually about forty thousand
pounds more, to put them on a par with the contribu-
tion of the nobility.

When the terrors of this tremendous proscription
hung over the clergy, they made an offer of a contribu-
tion, through the Archbishop of Aix, which, for its
extravagance, ought not to have been accepted. But
it was evidently and obviously more advantageous to
the public creditor, than anything which could ration-
ally be promised by the confiscation. Why was it not
accepted ? The reason is plain — There was no desire
that the church should be brought to serve the state.
The service of the state was made a pretext to destroy
the church. In their way to the destruction of the
church they would not scruple to destroy their country :
and they have destroyed it. One great end in the pro-
ject would have been defeated, if the plan of extortion
had been adopted in lieu of the scheme of confiscation.
The new landed interest connected with the new re-
public, and connected with it for its very being, could
not have been created. This was among the reasons
why that extravagant ransom was not accepted.

The madness of the project of confiscation, on the
plan that was first pretended, soon became apparent.
To bring this unwieldy mass of landed property, en-
larged by the confiscation of all the vast landed domain
of the crown, at once into market, was obviously
to defeat the profits proposed by the confiscation, by
depreciating the value of those lands, and indeed of
all the landed estates throughout France. Such a
sudden diversion of all its circulating money from trade
to land must be an additional mischief. What step

ENFORCED PAPER CURRENCY 133

was taken ? Did the assembly, on becoming sensible
of the inevitable ill effects of their projected sale, revert
to the offers of the clergy ? No distress could oblige
them to travel in a course which was disgraced by any
appearance of justice. Giving over all hopes from a
general immediate sale, another project seems to have
succeeded. They proposed to take stock in exchange
for the church lands. In that project great difficulties
arose in equalizing the objects to be exchanged. Other
obstacles also presented themselves, which threw them
back again upon some project of sale. The munici-
palities had taken an alarm. They would not hear of
transferring the whole plunder of the kingdom to the
stockholders in Paris. Many of those municipalities
had been (upon system) reduced to the most deplorable
indigence. Money was nowhere to be seen. They
were therefore led to the point that was so ardently
desired. They panted for a currency of any kind which
might revive their perishing industry. The munici-
palities were then to be admitted to a share in the spoil,
which evidently rendered the first scheme (if ever it
had been seriously entertained) altogether impracticable.
Public exigencies pressed upon all sides. The minister
of finance reiterated his call for supply with a most
urgent, anxious, and boding voice. Thus pressed on
all sides, instead of the first plan of converting their
bankers into bishops and abbots, instead of paying the
old debt, they contracted a new debt, at three per cent.,
creating a new paper currency, founded on an eventual
sale of the church lands. They issued this paper cur-
rency to satisfy in the first instance chiefly the demands
made upon them by the bank of discount, the great
machine, or paper-mill of their fictitious wealth.

The spoil of the church was now become the only
resource of all their operations in finance, the vital
principle of all their politics, the sole security for the
existence of their power. It was necessary by all, even
the most violent means, to put every individual on the
same bottom, and to bind the nation in one guilty
interest to uphold this act, and the authority, of those

134 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

by whom it was done. In order to force the most re-
luctant into a participation of their pillage, they ren-
dered their paper circulation compulsory in all payments
Those who consider the general tendency of their
schemes to this one object as a centre, and a centre from
which afterwards all their measures radiate, will not
think that I dwell too long upon this part of the pro-
ceedings of the National Assembly.

To cut off all appearance of connexion between the
crown and public justice, and to bring the whole under
implicit obedience to the dictators in Paris, the old in-
dependent judicature of the parliaments, with all its
merits, and all its faults, was wholly abolished. Whilst
the parliaments existed, it was evident that the people
might some time or other come to resort to them, and
rally under the standard of their ancient laws. It
became, however, a matter of consideration that the
magistrates and officers, in the courts now abolished.
had purchased their plac.es at a very high rate, for which
as well as for the duty they performed, they received
but a very low return of interest. Simple confiscation
is a boon only for the clergy ; — to the lawyers some
appearances of equity are to be observed ; — and they
are to receive compensation to an immense amount.
Their compensation becomes part of the national debt,
for the liquidation of which there is the one exhaustless
fund. The lawyers are to obtain their compensation
in this new church paper, which is to march with the
new principles of judicature and legislature. The dis-
missed magistrates are to take their share of martyr-
dom with the ecclesiastics, or to receive their own pro-
perty from such a fund, and in such a manner, as all
those, who have been seasoned with the ancient prin-
ciples of jurisprudence, and had been the sole guardians
of property, must look upon with horror. Even the
clergy are to receive their miserable allowance out of
the depreciated paper, which is stamped with the in-
delible character of sacrilege, and with the symbols of
their own ruin, or they must starve. So violent an
outrage upon credit, property, and liberty, as this

REVOLUTION METHODS 135

compulsory paper currency, hag seldom been exhibited
by the alliance of bankruptcy and tyranny, at any time,
or in any nation.

In the course of all these operations, at length comes
out the grand arcanum ; — that in reality, and in a fair
sense, the lands of the church (so far as anything certain
can be gathered from their proceedings) are not to be
sold at all. By the late resolutions of the National
Assembly, they are indeed to be delivered to the highest
bidder. But it is to be observed, that a certain portion
only of the purchase money is to be laid down. A period
of twelve years is to be given for the payment of the
rest. The philosophic purchasers are therefore, on
payment of a sort of fine, to be put instantly into posses-
sion of the estate. It becomes in some respects a sort
of gift to them ; to be held on the feudal tenure of zeal
to the new establishment. This project is evidently
to let in a body of purchasers without money. The
consequence will be, that these purchasers, or rather
guarantees, will pay, not only from the rents as they
accrue, which might as well be received by the state,
but from the spoil of the materials of buildings, from
waste in woods, and from whatever money, by hands
habituated to the gripings of usury, they can wring
from the miserable peasant. He is to be delivered over
to the mercenary and arbitrary discretion of men, who
will be stimulated to every species of extortion by the
growing demands on the growing profits of an estate
held under the pecarious settlement of a new political
system.

When all the frauds, impostures, violences, rapines,
burnings, murders, confiscations, compulsory paper
currencies, and every description of tyranny and cruelty
employed to bring about and to uphold this Revolution,
have their natural effect, that is, to shock the moral
sentiments of all virtuous and sober minds, the abet-
tors of this philosophic system immediately strain their
throats in a declamation against the old monarchical
government of France. When they have rendered that
deposed power sufficiently black, they then proceed in

136 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

argument, as if all those who disapprove of their new
abuses must of course be partisans of the old ; that
those who reprobate their crude and violent schemes
of liberty ought to be treated as advocates for servitude.
I admit that their necessities do compel them to this
base and contemptible fraud. Nothing can reconcile
men to their proceedings and projects but the supposi-
tion that there is no third option between them and
some tyranny as odious as can be furnished by the
records of history, or by the invention of poets. This
prattling of theirs hardly deserves the name of sophistry.
It is nothing but plain impudence. Have these gentle-
men never heard, in the whole circle of the worlds of
theory and practice, of anything between the despotism
of the monarch and the despotism of the multitude ?
Have they never heard of a monarchy directed by laws,
controlled and balanced by the great hereditary wealth
and hereditary dignity of a nation ; and both again
controlled by a judicious check from the reason and
feeling of the people at large, acting by a suitable and
permanent organ ? Is it then impossible that a man
may be found who, without criminal ill intention, or
pitiable absurdity, shall prefer such a mi xed and tempered
government to either of the extremes ; and who may
repute that nation to be destitute of all wisdom and of
all virtue, which, having in its choice to obtain such
a government with ease, or rather to confirm it when
actually possessed, thought proper to commit a thousand
crimes, and to subject their country to a thousand evils,
in order to avoid it ? Is it then a truth so universally
acknowledged, that a pure democracy is the only toler-
able form into which human society can be thrown,
that a man is not permitted to hesitate about its merits,
without the suspicion of being a friend to tyranny,
that is, of being a foe to mankind ?

I do not know under what description to class the
present ruling authority in France. It affects to be
pure democracy, though I think it in a direct train of
becoming shortly a mischievous and ignoble oligarchy.
But for the present I admit it to be a contrivance of the

THE PRESENT RULING AUTHORITY 137

nature and effect of what it pretends to. I reprobate
no form of government merely upon abstract principles.
There may be situations in which the purely democratic
form will become necessary. There may be some (very
few, and very particularly circumstanced) where it
would be clearly desirable. This I do not take to be
the case of France, or of any other great country.
Until now, we have seen no examples of considerable
democracies. The ancients were better acquainted
with them. Not being wholly unread in the authors,
who had seen the most of those constitutions, and who
best understood them, I cannot help concurring with
their opinion, that an absolute democracy, no more
than absolute monarchy, is to be reckoned among the
legitimate forms of government. They think it rather
the corruption and degeneracy, than the sound consti-
tution of a republic. If I recollect rightly, Aristotle
observes, that a democracy has many striking points
of resemblance with tyranny l. Of this I am certain,
that in a democracy, the majority of the citizens is
capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon
the minority, whenever strong divisions prevail in that
kind of polity, as they often must ; and that oppression

1 When I wrote this I quoted from memory, after many
years had elapsed from my reading the passage. A learned
friend has found it, and it is as follows :

Td TfQos TO CLVT&, Ka.1 afjufxa Seanon/ccL TWV &e\Tiov<uv, not rd
iffTjfpifffwTa, wffirtp (icti rd tiriTdyftara' «oi 6 Srjftaywytis Kai
o Ko\af, ol avroi teal ava\oyot' K<d paXiaTO. (Kartpoi irap'
(Karlpoa Icrxyovffiv, ol fi.lv Ko\a.K(s napa. rvpawois, ol SJ
STjliayuyol irapcL Tofs Srjftois roTs TOIOVTOIS —

' The ethical character is the same : both exercise des-
potism over the better class of citizens ; and decrees are
in the one, what ordinances and arrets are in the other :
the demagogue too, and the court favourite, are not unfre-
quently the same identical men, and always bear a close
analogy ; and these have the principal power, each in
their respective forms of government, favourites with
the absolute monarch, and demagogues with a people
euch as I have described.' Arist. Politic, lib. iv. cap. 4.

138 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

of the minority will extend to far greater numbers, and
will be carried on with much greater fury, than can
almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a
single sceptre. In such a popular persecution, in-
dividual sufferers are in a much more deplorable con-
dition than in any other. Under a cruel prince they
have the balmy compassion of mankind to assuage the
smart of their wounds ; they have the plaudits of the
people to animate their generous constancy under their
sufferings ; but those who are subjected to wrong under
multitudes, are deprived of all external consolation.
They seem deserted by mankind, overpowered by a
conspiracy of their whole species.

But admitting democracy not to have that inevitable
tendency to party tyranny, which I suppose it to have,
and admitting it to possess as much good in it when
unmixed, as I am sure it possesses when compounded
with other forms ; does monarchy, on its part, contain
nothing at all to recommend it ? I do not often quote
Bolingbroke, nor have his works in general left any
permanent impression on my mind. He is a presump-
tous and a superficial writer. But he has one observa-
tion, which, in my opinion, is not without depth ard
solidity. He says, that he prefers a monarchy to other
governments ; because you can better ingraft any
description of republic on a monarchy, than anything
of monarchy upon the republican forms I think him
perfectly in the right. The fact is so historically ; and
it agrees well with the speculation.

I know how easy a topic it is to dwell on the faults of
departed greatness. By a revolution in the state, the
fawning sycophant of yesterday is converted into the
austere critic of the present hour. But steady, in-
dependent minds, when they have an object of so
serious a concern to mankind as government under
their contemplation, will disdain to assume the part
of satirists and declaimers. They will judge of human
institutions as they do of human characters. They
will sort out the good from the evil, which is mixed in
mortal institutions, as it is in mortal men.

EXAGGERATED EVILS 139

Tour government in France, though usually, and I
think justly, reputed the best of the unqualified or
ill-qualified monarchies, was still full of abuses. These
abuses accumulated in a length of time, as they must
accumulate in every monarchy not under the constant
inspection of a popular representative. I am no
stranger to the faults and defects of the subverted
government of France ; and I think I am not inclined
by nature or policy to make a panegyric upon anything
which is a just and natural object of censure. But the
question is not now of the vices of that monarchy, but of
its existence. Is it then true, that the French govern-
ment was such as to be incapable or undeserving of
reform ; so that it was of absolute necessity that the
whole fabric should be at once pulled down, and the
area cleared for the erection of a theoretic, experimental
edifice in its place ? All France was of a different
opinion in the beginning of the year 1789. The in-
structions to the representatives to the states-general,
from every district in that kingdom, were filled with
projects for the reformation of that government, without
the remotest suggestion of a design to destroy it. Had
such a design been then even insinuated, I believe there
would have been but one voice, and that voice for re-
jecting it with scorn and horror. Men have been some-
times led by degrees, sometimes hurried, into things of
which, if they could have seen the whole together, they
never would have permitted the most remote approach.
When those instructions were given, there was no ques-
tion but that abuses existed, and that they demanded
a reform ; nor is there now. In the interval between
the instructions and the revolution, things changed
their shape ; and, in consequence of that change, the
true question at present is, whether those who would
have reformed, or those who have destroyed, are in
the right ?

To hear some men speak of the late monarchy of
France, you would imagine that they were talking of
Persia bleeding under the ferocious sword of Tahmas
Kouli Khan ; or at least describing the barbarous

140 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

anarchic despotism of Turkey, where the finest coun-
tries in the most genial climates in the world are wasted
by peace more than any countries have been worried
by war ; where arts are unknown, where manufactures
languish, where science is extinguished, where agricul-
ture decays, where the human race itself melts away
and perishes under the eye of the observer. Was this
the case of France ? I have no way of determining
the question but by a reference to facts. Facts do not
support this resemblance. Along with much evil, there
is some good in monarchy itself ; and some corrective
to its evil from religion, from laws, from manners, from
opinions, the French monarchy must have received ;
which rendered it (though by no means a free, and
therefore by no means a good constitution) a despotism
rather in appearance than in reality.

Among the standards upon which the effects of govern-
ment on any country are to be estimated, I must con-
sider the state of its population as not the least certain.
No country in which population flourishes, and is in
progressive improvement, can be under a very mis-
chievous government. About sixty years ago the
Intendants of the generalities of France made, with
other matters, a report of the population of their several
districts. I have not the books, which are very volumi-
nous, by me, nor do I know where to procure them (I am
obliged to speak by memory and therefore the less
positively), but I think the population of France was
by them, even at that period, estimated at twenty-two
millions of souls. At the end of the last century it had
been generally calculated at eighteen. On either of
these estimations, France was not ill-peopled. Mr.
Necker, who is an authority for his own time at least
equal to the Intendants for theirs, reckons, and upon
apparently sure principles, the people of France, in the
year 1780, at twenty-four millions six hundred and
seventy thousand. But was this the probable ultimate
term under the old establishment ? Dr. Price is of
opinion that the growth of population in France was
by no means at its acme in that year. I certainly defer

POPULATION AND WEALTH Ul

to Dr. Price's authority a good deal more in these specula-
tions than I do in his general politics. This gentleman,
taking ground on Mr. Necker's data, is very confident
that since the period of that minister's calculation, the
French population has increased rapidly; so rapidly,
that in the year 1789 he will not consent to rate the
people of that kingdom at a lower number than thirty
millions. After abating much (and much I think
ought to be abated) from the sanguine calculation of
Dr. Price, I have no doubt that the population of France
did increase considerably during this latter period :
but supposing that it increased to nothing more than
will be sufficient to complete the twenty-four millions
six hundred and seventy thousand to twenty-five mil-
lions, still a population of twenty-five millions, and that
in an increasing progress, on a space of about twenty-
seven thousand square leagues, is immense. It is, for
instance, a good deal more than the proportionable
population of this island, or even than that of England,
the best peopled part of the United Kingdom.

It is not universally true that France is a fertile
country. Considerable tracts of it are barren and
labour under other natural disadvantages. In the
portions of that territory where things are more favour-
able, as far as I am able to discover, the numbers of
the people correspond to the indulgence of nature '.
The Generality of Lisle (this I admit is the strongest
example) upon an extent of four hundred and four
leagues and a half, about ten years ago, contained seven
hundred and thirty-four thousand six hundred souls,
which is one thousand seven hundred and seventy-two
inhabitants to each square league. The middle term
for the rest of France is about nine hundred inhabitants
to the same admeasurement.

I do not attribute this population to the deposed
government ; because I do not like to compliment the
contrivances of men with what IB due in a great degree-

1 De 1'Administration des Finances de la France, par
Mons. Necker, vol. i. p. 288.

142 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

to the bounty of Providence. But that decried govern-
ment could not have obstructed, most probably it
favoured, the operation of those causes, (whatever they
were) whether of nature in the soil, or habits of industry
among the people, which has produced so large a number
of the species throughout that whole kingdom, and
exhibited in some particular places such prodigies of
population. I never will suppose that fabric of a state
to be the worst of all political institutions, which, by
experience, is found to contain a principle favourable
(however latent it may be) to the increase of mankind.
The wealth of a country is another, and no con-
temptible standard, by which we may judge whether,
on the whole, a government be protecting or destruc-
tive. France far exceeds England in the multitude of
her people ; but I apprehend that her comparative
wealth is much inferior to ours ; that it is not so equal
in the distribution, nor so ready in the circulation.
I believe the difference in the form of the two govern-
ments to be amongst the causes of this advantage on
the side of England. I speak of England, not of the
whole British dominions : which, if compared with
those of France, will, in some degree, weaken the com-
parative rate of wealth upon our side. But that wealth,
which will not endure a comparison with the riches of
England, may constitute a very respectable degree
of opulence. Air. Necker's book, published in 1785 J,
contains an accurate and interesting collection of facts
relative to public economy and to political arithmetic ;
and his speculations on the subject are in general wise
and liberal. In that work he gives an idea of the state
of France, very remote from the portrait of a country
whose government was a perfect grievance, an absolute
evil admitting no cure but through the violent and un-
certain remedy of a total revolution. He affirms, that
from the year 1726 to the year 1784, there was coined
at the mint of France, in the species of gold and silver,

1 De I'Administration des Finances de la France, par
MODS. Necker.

143

to the amount of about one hundred millions of pounds
sterling *.

It is impossible that Mr. Necker should be mistaken
in the amount of the bullion which has been coined in
the mint. It is a matter of official record. The reason-
ings of this able financier, concerning the quantity of
gold and silver which remained for circulation, when he
wrote in 1785, that is, about four years before the de-
position and imprisonment of the French king, are not
of equal certainty ; but they are laid on grounds so
apparently solid, that it is not easy to refuse a consider-
able degree of assent to his calculation. He calculates
the numeraire, or what we call specie, then actually
existing in France, at about eighty-eight millions of the
same English money. A great accumulation of wealth
for one country, large as that country is ! Mr. Necker
was so far from considering this influx of wealth as
likely to cease, when he wrote in 1785, that he presumes
upon a future annual increase of two per cent, upon the
money brought into France during the periods from
which he computed.

Some adequate cause must have originally introduced
all the money coined at its mint into that kingdom ;
and some cause as operative must have kept at home,
or returned into its bosom, such a vast flood of treasure
as Mr. Necker calculates to remain for domestic circula-
tion. Suppose any reasonable deductions from Mr.
Necker' s computation, the remainder must still amount
to an immense sum. Causes thus powerful to acquire,
and to retain, cannot be found in discouraged industry,
insecure property, and a positively destructive govern-
ment. Indeed, when I consider the face of the kingdom
of France ; the multitude and opulence of her cities ;
the useful magnificence of her spacious high roads and
bridges ; the opportunity of her artificial canals and
navigations opening the oonveniences of maritime com-
munication through a solid continent of so immense an
extent ; when I turn my eyes to the stupendous works

1 Ibid., vol. iii. chap. 8 and chap. 9.

144 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

of her ports and harbours, and to her whole naval
apparatus, whether for war or trade ; when I bring
before my view the number of her fortifications, con-
structed with so bold and masterly a skill, and made
and maintained at so prodigious a charge, presenting
an armed front and impenetrable barrier to her enemies
upon every side ; when I recollect how very small a
part of that extensive region is without cultivation, and
to what complete perfection the culture of many of the
best productions of the earth have been brought in
France ; when I reflect on the excellence of her manu-
factures and fabrics, second to none but ours, and
in some particulars not second ; when I contemplate
the grand foundations of charity, public and private ;
when I survey the state of all the arts that beautify
and polish life ; when I reckon the men she has bred
for extending her fame in war, her able statesmen, the
multitude of her profound lawyers and theologians, her
philosophers, her critics, her historians and antiquaries,
her poets and her orators, sacred and profane ; I behold
in all this something which awes and commands the
imagination, which ehecks the mind on the brink of
precipitate and indiscriminate censure, and which de-
mands that we should very seriously examine, what and
how great are the latent vices that could authorize us
at once to level so specious a fabric with the ground.
I do not recognize, in this view of things, the despotism
of Turkey. Nor do I discern the character of a govern-
ment, that has been, on the whole, so oppressive, or so
corrupt, or so negligent, as to be utterly unfit for all
reformation. I must think such a government well de-
served to have its excellences heightened, its faults
corrected, and its capacites improved into a British
constitution.

Whoever has examined into the proceedings of that
deposed government for several years back cannot fail
to have observed, amidst the inconstancy and fluctua-
tion natural to courts, an earnest endeavour towards
the prosperity and improvement of the country ; he
must admit that it had been long employed, in some

REVOLUTION UNNECESSARY 145

instances, wholly to remove, in many considerably to
correct, the abusive practices and usages that had pre-
vailed in the state ; and that even the unlimited power
of the sovereign over the persons of his subjects, incon-
sistent, as undoubtedly it was, with law and liberty, had
yet been every day growing more mitigated in the
exercise. So far from refusing itself to reformation,
that government was open, with a censurable degree of
facility, to all sorts of projects and projectors on the
subject. Rather too much countenance was given to the
spirit of innovation, which soon was turned against those
who fostered it, and ended in their ruin. It is but cold,
and no very nattering justice to that fallen monarchy,
to say, that, for many years, it trespassed more by
levity and want of judgment in several of its schemes,
than from any defect in diligence or in public spirit.
To compare the government of France for the last
fifteen or sixteen years with wise and well-constituted
establishments during that, or during any period, is
not to act with fairness. But if in point of prodigality
in the expenditure of money, or in point of rigour in
the exercise of power, it be compared with any of the
former reigns, I believe candid judges will give little
credit to the good intentions of those who dwell per-
petually on the donations to favourites, or on the ex-
penses of the court, or on the horrors of the Bastile, in
the reign of Louis the Sixteenth *.

Whether the system, if it deserves such a name, now
built on the ruins of that ancient monarchy, will be
able to give a better account of the population and
wealth of the country, which it has taken under its care,
is a matter very doubtful. Instead of improving by
the change, I apprehend that a long series of years must
be told, before it can recover in any degree the effects

1 The world is obliged to Mr. de Calonne for the pains
he has taken to refute the scandalous exaggerations relative
to some of the royal expenses, and to detect the fallacious
account given of pensions, for the wicked purpose of pro-
voking the populace to all sorts of crimes.

BCRKE. iv

146 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

of this philosophic Revolution, and before the nation
can be replaced on its former footing. If Dr. Price
should think fit, a few years hence, to favour us with an
estimate of the population of France, he will hardly
be able to make up his tale of thirty millions of souls,
as computed in 1789, or the assembly's computation
of twenty-six millions of that year ; or even Mr. Necker's
twenty-five millions in 1780. I hear that there are
considerable emigrations from France ; and that many,
quitting that voluptuous climate, and that seductive
Circean liberty, have taken refuge in the frozen regions,
and under the British despotism of Canada.

In the present disappearance of coin, no person could
think it the same country, in which the present minister
of the finances has been able to discover fourscore
millions sterling in species. From its general aspect one
would conclude that it had been for some time past
under the special direction of the learned academicians
of Laputa and Balnibarbi 1. Already the population
of Paris has so declined, that Mr. Necker stated to the
National Assembly the provision to be made for its
subsistence at a fifth less than what had formerly been
found requisite 2. It is said (and I have never heard
it contradicted) that a hundred thousand people are
out of employment in that city, though it is become the
seat of the imprisoned court and National Assembly.
Nothing, I am credibly informed, can exceed the shock-
ing and disgusting spectacle of mendicancy displayed
in that capital. Indeed the votes of the National
Assembly leave no doubt of the facts. They have
lately appointed a standing committee of mendicancy.
They are contriving at once a vigorous police on this
subject, and, for the first time, the imposition of a tax
to maintain the poor, for whose present relief great

1 See Gulliver's Travels for the idea of countries governed
by philosophers.

3 Mr. de Calonne states the falling off of the population
of Paris as far more considerable ; and it may be so, since
the period of Mr. Necker's calculation.

REAL LIBERTY

147

sums appear on the face of the public accounts of the
year *. In the meantime the leaders of the legislative
clubs and coffee-houses are intoxicated with admiration
at their own wisdom and ability. They speak with the
most sovereign contempt of the rest of the world. They
tell the people, to comfort them in the rags with which
they have clothed them, that they are a nation of philo-
sophers ; and, sometimes, by all the arts of quackish
parade, by show, tumult, and bustle, sometimes by the
alarms of plots and invasions, they attempt to drown
the cries of indigence, and to divert the eyes of the
observer from the ruin and wretchedness of the state.
A brave people will certainly prefer liberty accompanied
with a virtuous poverty to a depraved and wealthy
servitude. But before the price of comfort and opu-
lence is paid, one ought to be pretty sure it is real liberty
which is purchased, and that she is to be purchased at
no other price. I shall, always, however, consider that
liberty as very equivocal in her appearance, which has
not wisdom and justice for her companions ; and does
not lead prosperity and plenty in her train.

Limes

s. d.

1 Travaux de charite pour

subvenir au manque de

travail a Paris et dans les

provinces .... 3,866,920

Destruction de vagabondage

et de la mendicite . . . 1,671,417
Primes pour 1'importation de

grains 5,671,907

Depenses relatives aux eub-
sistances, deduction fait
des recouvrements qui ont
eulieu 39,871,790 1,661,324 11 8

161,121 13 4

69,642 7 6

236,329 9 2

Total

. 51,082,034 £2,128,418 1 8

When I sent this book to the press, I entertained some

doubt concerning the nature and extent of the last article

in the above accounts, which is only under a general head,

without any detail. Since then I have seen Mr. de Calonne's

L2

148 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

The advocates of this Revolution, not satisfied with
exaggerating the vices of their ancient government,
strike at the fame of their country itself, by painting
almost all that could have attracted the attention of
strangers, I mean their nobility and their clergy, as
objects of horror. If this were only a libel, there had
not been much in it. But it has practical consequences.
Had your nobility and gentry, who formed the great
body of your landed men, and the whole of your military
officers, resembled those of Germany, at the period
when the Hanse-towns were necessitated to confederate
against the nobles in defence of their property — had
they been like the Orsini and Vitelli in Italy, who used
to sally from their fortified dens to rob the trader and
traveller — had they been such as the Mamelukes in
Egypt, or the Nayres on the coast of Malabar, I do
admit, that too critical an inquiry might not be advisable
into the means of freeing the world from such a nuisance.
The statues of Equity and Mercy might be veiled for
a moment. The tenderest minds, confounded with the
dreadful exigence in which morality submits to the
suspension of its own rules in favour of its own prin-
ciples, might turn aside whilst fraud and violence were
accomplishing the destruction of a pretended nobility
which disgraced, whilst it persecuted, human nature.
The persons most abhorrent from blood, and treason,

work. I must think it a great loss to me that I had not
that advantage earlier. Mr. de Calonne thinks this article
to be on account of general subsistence ; but as he is not
able to comprehend how so great a loss as upwards of
1,661,(KXV. sterling could be sustained on the difference
between the price and the sale of grain, he seems to attribute
this enormous head of charge to secret expenses of the
Revolution. I cannot say anything positively on that
subject. The reader is capable of judging, by the aggre-
gate of these immense charges, on the state and condition
of France ; and the system of public economy adopted in
that nation. These articles of account produced no
inquiry or discussion in the National Assembly.

HENRY OF NAVARRE 149

and arbitrary confiscation, might remain silent specta-
tors of this civil war between the vices.

But did the privileged nobility who met under the
king's precept at Versailles, in 1789, or their consti-
tuents, deserve to be looked on as the Nayres or Mame-
lukes of this age, or as the Orsini and Vitelli of ancient
times ? If I had then asked the question 1 should
have passed for a madman. What have they done
since that they were to be driven into exile, that their
persons should be hunted about, mangled, and tortured,
their families dispersed, their houses laid in ashes, and
that their order should be abolished, and the memory
of it, if possible, extinguished, by ordaining them to
change the very names by which they were usually
known ? Read their instructions to their representa-
tives. They breathe the spirit of liberty as warmly,
and they recommend reformation as strongly, as any
other order. Their privileges relative to contribution
were voluntarily surrendered ; as the king, from the
beginning, surrendered all pretence to a right of taxa-
tion. Upon a free constitution there was but one opinion
in France. The absolute monarchy was at an end.
It breathed its last, without a groan, without struggle,
without convulsion. All the struggle, all the dissension
arose afterwards upon the preference of a despotic
democracy to a government of reciprocal control. The
triumph of the victorious party was over the principles
of a British constitution.

I have observed the affectation which, for many
years past, has prevailed in Paris, even to a degree
perfectly childish, of idolizing the memory of your
Henry IV. If anything could put any one out of
humour with that ornament to the kingly character,
it would be this overdone style of insidious panegyric.
The persons who have worked this engine the most
busily are those who have ended their panegyrics in
dethroning his successor and descendant; a man, as
good natured, at the least, as Henry IV ; altogether
as fond of his people ; and who has done infinitely more
to correct the ancient vices of the state, than that great

150 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

monarch did, or we are sure he ever meant to do. Well
it is for his panegyrists, that they have not him to deal
with. For Henry of Navarre was a resolute, active, and
politic prince. He possessed, indeed, great humanity
and mildness ; but a humanity and mildness that never
stood in the way of his interests. He never sought to
be loved without putting himself first in a condition to
be feared. He used soft language with determined
conduct. He asserted and maintained his authority in
the gross, and distributed his acts of concession only in
the detail. He spent the income of his prerogative
nobly ; but he took care not to break in upon the
capital ; never abandoning for a moment any of the
claims which he made under the fundamental laws, nor
sparing to shed the blood of those who opposed him,
often in the field, sometimes upon the scaffold. Be-
cause he knew how to make his virtues respected by
the ungrateful, he has merited the praises of those,
whom, if they had lived in his time, he would have
shut up in the Bastile, and brought to punishment
along with the regicides whom he hanged after he had
famished Paris into a surrender.

If these panegyrists are in earnest in their admira-
tion of Henry IV, they must remember, that they can-
not think more highly of him, than he did of the noblesse
of France ; whose virtue, honour, courage, patriotism,
and loyalty were his constant theme.

But the nobility of France are degenerated since the
days of Henry IV. This is possible. But it is more
than I can believe to be true in any great degree. I do
not pretend to know France as correctly as some others ;
but I have endeavoured through my whole life to make
myself acquainted with human nature : otherwise I
should be unfit to take even my humble part in the
service of mankind. In that study I could not pass
by a vast portion of our nature, as it appeared modified
in a country but twenty-four miles from the shore of
this island. On my best observation, compared with
my best inquiries, I found your nobility for the greater
part composed of men of a high spirit, and of a delicate

THE FRENCH NOBILITY 151

sense of honour, both with regard to themselves in-
dividually, and with regard to their whole corps, over
whom they kept, beyond what is common in other
countries, a censorial eye. They were tolerably well
bred ; very officious, humane, and hospitable ; in their
conversation frank and open ; with a good military
tone ; and reasonably tinctured with literature, parti-
cularly of the authors in their own language. Many
had pretensions far above this description. I speak of
those who were generally met with.

As to their behaviour to the inferior classes, they
appeared to me to comport themselves towards them
with good-nature, and with something more nearly
approaching to familiarity, than is generally practised
with us in the intercourse between the higher and lower
ranks of life. To strike any person, even in the most
abject condition, was a thing in a manner unknown,
and would be highly disgraceful. Instances of other
ill-treatment of the humble part of the community were
rare ; and, as to attacks made upon the property or the
personal liberty of the commons, I never heard of any
whatsoever from them ; nor, whilst the laws were in
vigour under the ancient government, would such
tyranny in subjects have been permitted. As men of
landed estates, I had no fault to find with their conduct,
though much to reprehend, and much to wish changed,
in many of the old tenures. Where the letting of their
land was by rent, I could not discover that their agree-
ments with their farmers were oppressive ; nor when
they were in partnership with the farmer, as often was
the case, have I heard that they had taken the lion's
share. The proportions seemed not inequitable. There
might be exceptions ; but certainly they were excep-
tions only. I have no reason to believe that in these
respects the landed noblesse of France were worse than
the landed gentry of this country ; certainly in no
respect more vexatious than the landholders, not noble,
of their own nation. In cities the nobility had no
manner of power ; in the country very little. You
know, sir, that much of the civil government, and the

152 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

police in the most essential parts, was not in the hands
of that nobility which presents itself first to our con-
sideration. The revenue, the system and collection of
which were the most grievous parts of the French
government, was not administered by the men of the
sword ; nor were they answerable for the vices of its
principle, or the vexations, where any such existed, in
its management.

Denying, as I am well warranted to do, that the
nobility had any considerable share in the oppression
of the people, in cases in which real oppression existed,
I am ready to admit that they were not without con-
siderable faults and errors. A foolish imitation of the
worst part of the manners of England, which impaired
their natural character, without substituting in its
place what perhaps they meant to copy, has certainly
rendered them worse than formerly they were. Habitual
dissoluteness of manners continued beyond the pardon-
able period of life, was more common amongst them
than it is with us ; and it reigned with the less hope
of remedy, though possibly with something of less
mischief, by being covered with more exterior decorum.
They countenanced too much that licentious philosophy
which has helped to bring on their ruin. . There was
another error amongst them more fatal. Those of the
commons, who approached to or exceeded many of
the nobility in point of wealth, were not fully admitted
to the rank and estimation which wealth, in reason and
good policy, ought to bestow in every country ; though
I think not equally with that of other nobility. The
two kinds of aristocrary were too punctiliously kept
asunder ; less so, however, than in Germany and some
other nations.

This separation, as I have already taken the liberty
of suggesting to you, I conceive to be one principal cause
of the destruction of the old nobility. The military,
particularly, was too exclusively reserved for men of
family. But, after all, this was an error of opinion,
which a conflicting opinion would have rectified.
A permanent assembly, in which the commons had

BURKE'S OBSERVATIONS IN FRANCE 153

their share of power, would soon abolish whatever was
too invidious and insulting in these distinctions ; and
even the faults in the morals of the nobility would have
been probably corrected, by the greater varieties of
occupation and pursuit to which a constitution by
orders would have given rise.

All this violent cry against the nobility I take to be
a mere work of art. To be honoured and even privi-
leged by the laws, opinions, and inveterate usages of
our country, growing out of the prejudice of ages, has
nothing to provoke horror and indignation in any man.
Even to be too tenacious of those privileges is not
absolutely a crime. The strong struggle in every
individual to preserve possession of what he has found
to belong to him, and to distinguish him, is one of the
securities against injustice and despotism implanted
in our nature. It operates as an instinct to secure
property, and to preserve communities in a settled
state. What is there to shock in this ? Nobility is
a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the
Corinthian capital of polished society. Omnes boni
nobilitati semper javemus, was the saying of a wise and
good man. It is, indeed, one sign of a liberal and
benevolent mind to incline to it with some sort of
partial propensity. He feels no ennobling principle in
his own heart, who wishes to level all the artificial
institutions which have been adopted for giving a body
to opinion and permanence to fugitive esteem. It is
a sour, malignant, envious disposition, without taste
for the reality, or for any image or representation of
virtue, that sees with joy the unmerited fall of what
had long nourished in splendour and in honour. I do
not like to see anything destroyed ; any void produced
in society ; any ruin on the face of the land. It was
therefore with no disappointment or dissatisfaction
that my inquiries and observations did not present to
me any incorrigible vices in the noblesse of France,
or any abuse which could not be removed by a reform
very short of abolition. Your noblesse did not deserve
punishment ; but to degrade is to punish.

154 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

It was with the same satisfaction I found that the
result of my inquiry concerning your clergy was not
dissimilar. It is no soothing news to my ears, that
great bodies of men are incurably corrupt. It is not
with much credulity I listen to any, when they speak
evil of those whom they are going to plunder. I rather
suspect that vices are feigned or exaggerated, when
profit is looked for in their punishment. An enemy
is a bad witness ; a robber is a worse. Vices and
abuses there were undoubtedly in that order, and must
be. It was an old establishment, and not frequently
revised. But I saw no crimes in the individuals that
merited confiscation of their substance, nor those cruel
insults and degradations, and that unnatural persecu-
tion, which have been substituted in the place of
meliorating regulation.

If there had been any just cause for this new religious
persecution, the atheistic libellers, who act as trumpeters
to animate the populace to plunder, do not love any-
body so much as not to dwell with complacence on the
vices of the existing clergy. This they have not done.
They find themselves obliged to rake into the histories
of former ages (which they have ransacked with
a malignant and profligate industry) for every instance
of oppression and persecution which has been made by
that body or in its favour, in order to justify, upon
very iniquitous, because very illogical, principles of
retaliation, their own persecutions, and their own
cruelties. After destroying all other genealogies and
family distinctions, they invent a sort of pedigree of
crimes. It is not very just to chastise men for the
offences of their natural ancestors : but to take the
fiction of ancestry in a corporate succession, as a ground
for punishing men who have no relation to guilty acts,
except in names and general description?., is a sort of
refinement in injustice belonging to the philosophy of
this enlightened age. The assembly punishes men,
many, if not most, of whom abhor the violent conduct
of ecclesiastics in former times as much as their present
persecutors can do, and who would be as loud and as

MORAL LESSONS OF HISTORY 155

strong in the expression of that sense, if they were not
well aware of the purposes for which all this declama-
tion is employed.

Corporate bodies are immortal for the good of the
members, but not for their punishment. Nations
themselves are such corporations. As well might we
in England think of waging inexpiable war upon all
Frenchmen for the evils which they have brought upon
us in the several periods of our mutual hostilities. You
might, on your part, think yourselves justified in falling
upon all Englishmen on account of the unparalleled
calamities brought upon the people of France by the
unjust invasions of our Henries and our Edwards.
Indeed we should be mutually justified in this extermi-
natory war upon each other, full as much as you are in
the unprovoked persecution of your present country-
men, on account of the conduct of men of the same
name in other times.

We do not draw the moral lessons we might from
history. On the contrary, without care it may be used
to vitiate our minds and to destroy our happiness. In
history a great volume is unrolled for our instruction,
drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past
errors and infirmities of mankind. It may, in the
perversion, serve for a magazine, furnishing offensive
and defensive weapons for parties in church and state,
and supplying the means of keeping alive or reviving
dissensions and animosities, and adding fuel to civil
fury. History consists, for the greater part, of the
miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition,
avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned
zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetites, which
shake the public with the same

. . . ' troublous storms that toss

The private state, and render life unsweet.'

These vices are the causes of those storms. Religion,
morals, laws, prerogatives, privileges, liberties, rights
of men, are the pretexts. The pretexts are always found
in some specious appearance of a real good. You would

not secure men from tyranny and sedition, by rooting
out of the mind the principles to which these fraudulent
pretexts apply ? If you did, you would root out every-
thing that is valuable in the human breast. As these
are the pretexts, so the ordinary actors and instruments
in great public evils are kings, priests, magistrates,
senates, parliaments, national assemblies, judges, and
captains. You would not cure the evil by resolving,
that there should be no more monarchs, nor ministers
of state, nor of the Gospel ; no interpreters of law ; no
general officers ; no public councils. You might
change the names. The things in some shape must
remain. A certain quantum of power must always exist
in the community, in some hands, and under some
appellation. Wise men will apply their remedies to
vices, not to names ; to the causes of evil which are
permanent, not to the occasional organs by which they
act, and the transitory modes in which they appear.
Otherwise you will be wise historically, a fool in prac-
tice. Seldom have two ages the same fashion in their
pretexts and the same modes of mischief. Wickedness
is a little more inventive. Whilst you are discussing
fashion, the fashion is gone by. The very same vice
assumes a new body. The spirit transmigrates ; and,
far from losing its principle of life by the change of
its appearance, it is renovated in its new organs with
the fresh vigour of a juvenile activity. It walks abroad,
it continues its ravages, whilst you are gibbeting the
carcase, or demolishing the tomb. You are terrifying
yourselves with ghosts and apparitions, whilst your
house is the haunt of robbers. It is thus with all those
who, attending only to the shell and husk of history,
think they are waging war with intolerance, pride, and
cruelty, whilst, under colour of abhorring the ill prin-
ciples of antiquated parties, they are authorizing and
feeding the same odious vices in different factions, and
perhaps in worse.

Your citizens of Paris formerly had lent themselves
as the ready instruments to slaughter the followers of
Calvin at the infamous massacre of St. Bartholomew.

THE SHELL AND HUSK 157

What should we say to those who could think of
retaliating on the Parisians of this day the abominations
and horrors of that time ? They are indeed brought
to abhor that massacre. Ferocious as they are, it is
not difficult to make them dislike it ; because the
politicians and fashionable teachers have no interest
in giving their passions exactly the same direction.
Still, however, they find it their interest to keep the
same savage dispositions alive. It was but the other
day that they caused this very massacre to be acted
on the stage for the diversion of the descendants of
those who committed it. In this tragic farce they pro-
duced the Cardinal of Lorraine in his robes of function,
ordering general slaughter. Was this spectacle intended
to make the Parisians abhor persecution, and loathe
the effusion of blood ? — No ; it was to teach them to
persecute their own pastors ; it was to excite them, by
raising a disgust and horror of their clergy, to an
alacrity in hunting down to destruction an order, which,
if it ought to exist at all, ought to exist not only in
safety, but in reverence. It was to stimulate their
cannibal appetites (which one would think had been
gorged sufficiently) by variety and seasoning ; and to
quicken them to an alertness in new murders and
massacres, if it should suit the purpose of the Guises
of the day. An assembly, in which sat a multitude of
priests and prelates, was obliged to suffer this indignity
at its door. The author was not sent to the galleys,
nor the players to the house of correction. Not long
after this exhibition, those players came forward to
the assembly to claim the rites of that very religion
which they had dared to expose, and to show their
prostituted faces in the senate, whilst the Archbishop
of Paris, whose function was known to his people only
by his prayers and benedictions, and his wealth only
by alms, is forced to abandon his house, and to fly from
his flock (as from ravenous wolves) because, truly, in
the sixteenth century, the Cardinal of Lorraine was
a rebel and a murderer 1.

1 This is on a supposition of the truth of this story, but

158 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTIONS

Such is the effect of the perversion of history, by
those who, for the same nefarious purposes, have per-
verted every other part of learning. But those who
will stand upon that elevation of reason, which places
centuries under our eye, and brings things to the true
point of comparison, which obscures little names, and
effaces the colours of little parties, and to which nothing
can ascend but the spirit and moral quality of human
actions, will say, to the teachers of the Palais Royal, —
the Cardinal of Lorraine was the murderer of the six-
teenth century, you have the glory of being the mur-
derers in the eighteenth ; and this is the only difference
between you. But history, in the nineteenth century,
better understood and better employed, will, I trust,
teach a civilized posterity to abhor the misdeeds of
both these barbarous ages. It will teach future priests
and magistrates not to retaliate upon the speculative
and inactive atheists of future times the enormities
committed by the present practical zealots and furious
fanatics of that wretched error, which, in its quiescent
state, is more than punished, whenever it is embraced.
It will teach posterity not to make war upon either
religion or philosophy, for the abuse which the hypo-
crites of both have made of the two most valuable
blessings conferred upon us by the bounty of the
universal Patron, who in all things eminently favours
and protects the race of man.

If your clergy, or any clergy, should show themselves
vicious beyond the fair bounds allowed to human
infirmity, and to those professional faults which can
hardly be separated from professional virtues, though
their vices never can countenance the exercise of oppres-
sion, I do admit that they would naturally have the
effect of abating very much of our indignation against
the tyrants who exceed measure and justice in their
punishment. I can allow in clergymen, through all
their divisions, some tenaciousness of their own opinion,

he was not in France at the time. One name serves as
well as another.

THE CLERICAL ORDERS 159

some overflowings of zeal for its propagation, some
predilection to their own state and office, some attach-
ment to the interest of their own corps, some preference
to those who listen with docility to their doctrines
beyond those who scorn and deride them. I allow all
this, because I am a man who have to deal with men,
and who would not, through a violence of toleration,
run into the greatest of all intolerance. I must bear
with infirmities until they fester into crimes.

Undoubtedly the natural progress of the passions,
from frailty to vice, ought to be prevented by a watch-
ful eye and a firm hand. But is it true that the body
of your clergy had passed those limits of a just allow-
ance ? From the general style of your late publications
of all sorts, one would be led to believe that your clergy
in France were a sort of monsters ; a horrible composi-
tion of superstition, ignorance, sloth, fraud, avarice,
and tyranny. But is this true ? Is it true that the
lapse of time, the cessation of conflicting interests, the
woeful experience of the evils resulting from party
rage, have had no sort of influence gradually to melio-
rate their minds ? Is it true that they were daily
renewing invasions on the civil power, troubling the
domestic quiet of their country, and rendering the
operations of its government feeble and precarious ?
Is it true, that the clergy of our times have pressed
down the laity with an iron hand, and were, in all
places, lighting up the fires of a savage persecution ?
Did they by every fraud endeavour to increase their
estates ? Did they use to exceed the due demands
on estates that were their own ? Or, rigidly screwing
up right into wrong, did they convert a legal claim
into a vexatious extortion ? When not possessed of
power, were they filled with the vices of those who
envy it ? Were they inflamed with a violent, litigious
spirit of controversy ? Goaded on with the ambition
of intellectual sovereignty, were they ready to fly in
the face of all magistracy, to fire churches, to massacre
the priests of other descriptions, to pull down altars,
and to make their way over the ruins of subverted

160 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

governments to an empire of doctrine, sometimes
flattering, sometimes forcing, the consciences of men
from the jurisdiction of public institutions into a sub-
mission to their personal authority, beginning with
a claim of liberty and ending with an abuse of power ?

These, or some of these, were the vices objected, and
not wholly without foundation, to several of the church-
men of former times, who belonged to the two great
parties which then divided and distracted Europe.

If there was in France, as in other countries there
visibly is, a great abatement, rather than any increase
of these vices, instead of loading the present clergy
with the crimes of other men, and the odious character
of other times, in common equity they ought to be
praised, encouraged, and supported, in their departure
from a spirit which disgraced their predecessors, and
for having assumed a temper of mind and manners
more suitable to their sacred function.

When my occasions took me into France, towards
the close of the late reign, the clergy, under all their
forms, engaged a considerable part of my curiosity.
So far from finding (except from one set of men, not
then very numerous though very active) the complaints
and discontents against that body, which some publica-
tions had given me reason to expect, I perceived little
or no public or private uneasiness on their account.
On further examination, I found the clergy, in general,
persons of moderate minds and decorous manners ; I
include the seculars, and the regulars of both sexes.
I had not the good fortune to know a great many of
the parochial clergy ; but in general I received a per-
fectly good account of their morals and of their atten-
tion to their duties. With some of the higher clergy
I had a personal acquaintance ; and of the rest in that
class, a very good means of information. They were,
almost all of them, persons of noble birth. They resem-
bled others of their own rank ; and where there was any
difference, it was in their favour. They were more
fully educated than the military noblesse ; so as by no
means to disgrace their profession by ignorance, or

EXEMPLARY LIVES 161

by want of fitness for the exercise of their authority.
They seemed to me, beyond the clerical character,
liberal and open ; with the hearts of gentlemen and
men of honour ; neither insolent nor servile in their
manners and conduct. They seemed to me rather
a superior class ; a set of men amongst whom you
would not be surprised to find a Fendon. I saw among
the clergy in Paris (many of the description are not to
be met with anywhere) men of great learning and
candour ; and I had reason to believe that this descrip-
tion was not confined to Paris. What I found in other
places, I know was accidental ; and therefore to be
presumed a fair sample. I spent a few days in a
provincial town where, in the absence of the bishop,
I passed my evenings with three clergymen, his vicars-
general, persons who would have done honour to any
church. They were all well informed ; two of them
of deep, general, and extensive erudition, ancient and
modern, oriental and western ; particularly in their
own profession. They had a more extensive know-
ledge of our English divines than I expected ; and
they entered into the genius of those writers with
a critical accuracy. One of these gentlemen is since
dead, the Abbe Morangis. I pay this tribute, without
reluctance, to the memory of that noble, reverend,
learned, and excellent person ; and I should do the
same, with equal cheerfulness, to the merits of the
others, who I believe are still living, if I did not fear
to hurt those whom I am unable to serve.

Some of these ecclesiastics of rank, are, by their
titles, persons deserving of general respect. They are
deserving of gratitude from me, and from many
English. If this letter should ever come into their
hands, I hope they will believe there are those of our
nation who feel for their unmerited fall, and for the
cruel confiscation of their fortunes, with no common
sensibility. What I say of them is a testimony, as far
as one feeble voice can go, which I owe to truth.
Whenever the question of this unnatural persecution
is concerned, I will pay it. No one shall prevent me

BURKE. IT M

162 REFLECTIONS OX THE REVOLUTION

from being just and grateful. The time is fitted for
the duty ; and it is particularly becoming to show our
justice and gratitude, when those, who have deserved
well of us and of mankind, are labouring under popular
obloquy and the persecutions of oppressive power.

You had before your Revolution about a hundred
and twenty bishops. A few of them were men of
eminent sanctity and charity without limit. When
we talk of the heroic, of course we talk of rare virtue.
I believe the instances of eminent depravity may be
as rare amongst them as those of transcendent good-
ness. Examples of avarice and of licentiousness may
be picked out, I do not question it, by those who delight
in the investigation which leads to such discoveries.
A man as old as I am will not be astonished that
several, in every description, do not lead that perfect
life of self-denial, with regard to wealth or to pleasure,
which is wished for by all, by some expected, but by
none exacted with more rigour, than by those who are
the most attentive to their own interests, or the most
indulgent to their own passions. When I was in
France, I am certain that the number of vicious pre-
lates was not great. Certain individuals among them,
not distinguishable for the regularity of their lives,
made some amends for their want of the severe virtues,
in their possession of the liberal ; and were endowed
with qualities which made them useful in the church
and state. I am told that, with few exceptions, Louis
XVI had been more attentive to character, in his pro-
motions to that rank, than his immediate predecessor :
and I believe (as some spirit of reform has prevailed
through the whole reign) that it may be true. But the
present ruling power has shown a disposition only to
plunder the church. It has punished all prelates ;
which is to favour the vicious, at least in point of
reputation. It has made a degrading pensionary
establishment, to which no man of liberal ideas or
liberal condition will destine his children. It must
settle into the lowest classes of the people. As with
you the inferior clergy are not numerous enough for

AN ELECTIVE CLERGY 163

their duties ; as these duties are, beyond measure,
minute and toilsome, as you have left no middle classes
of clergy at their ease, in future nothing of science or
erudition can exist in the Gallican church. To com-
plete the project, without the least attention to the
rights of patrons, the assembly has provided in future
an elective clergy ; an arrangement which will drive
out of the clerical profession all men of sobriety ; all
who can pretend to independence in their function or
their conduct ; and which will throw the whole direc-
tion of the public mind into the hands of a set of licen-
tious, bold, crafty, factious, flattering wretches, of such
condition and such habits of life as will make their
contemptible pensions (in comparison of which the
stipend of an exciseman is lucrative and honourable)
an object of low and illiberal intrigue. Those officers,
whom they still call bishops, are to be elected to a pro-
vision comparatively mean, through the same arts,
(that is, electioneering arts,) by men of all religious
tenets that are known or can be invented. The new
lawgivers have not ascertained anything whatsoever
concerning their qualifications, relative either to doc-
trine or to morals ; no more than they have done with
regard to the subordinate clergy ; nor does it appear
but that both the higher and the lower may, at their
discretion, practise or preach any mode of religion or
irreligion that they please. I do not yet see what the
jurisdiction of bishops over their subordinates is to be,
or whether they are to have any jurisdiction at all.

In short, sir, it seems to me, that this new ecclesias-
tical establishment is intended only to be temporary,
and preparatory to the utter abolition, under any of
its forms, of the Christian religion, whenever the minds
of men are prepared for this last stroke against it, by
the accomplishment of the plan for bringing its minis-
ters into universal contempt. They who will not
believe that the philosophical fanatics, who guide in
these matters, have long entertained such a design,
are utterly ignorant of their character and proceedings.
These enthusiasts do not scruple to avow their opinion,

164 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

that a state can subsist without any religion better
than with one ; and that they are able to supply the
place of any good which may be in it, by a project of
their own — namely, by a sort of education they have
imagined, founded in a knowledge of the physical wants
of men ; progressively carried to an enlightened self-
interest, which, when well understood, they tell us,
will identify with an interest more enlarged and public.
The scheme of this education has been long known.
Of late they distinguish it (as they have got an entirely
new nomenclature of technical terms) by the name of
a Civic Education.

I hope their partisans in England (to whom I rather
attribute very inconsiderate conduct than the ultimate
object in this detestable design) will succeed neither
in the pillage of the ecclesiastics, nor in the introduction
of a principle of popular election to our bishoprics and
parochial cures. This, in the present condition of the
world, would be the last corruption of the church ; the
utter ruin of the clerical character ; the most dangerous
shock that the state ever received through a misunder-
stood arrangement of religion. I know well enough
that the bishoprics and cures, under kingly and seignorial
patronage, as now they are in England, and as they
have been lately in France, are sometimes acquired by
unworthy methods ; but the other mode of ecclesiastical
canvass subjects them infinitely more surely and more
generally to all the evil arts of low ambition which,
operating on and through greater numbers, will produce
mischief in proportion.

Those of you, who have robbed the clergy, think that
they shall easily reconcile their conduct to all Protestant
nations ; because the clergy, whom they have thus
plundered, degraded, and given over to mockery and
scorn, are of the Roman Catholic, that is, of their own
pretended persuasion. I have no doubt that some
miserable bigots will be found here as well as elsewhere,
who hate sects and parties different from their own,
more than they love the substance of religion ; and
who are more angry with those who differ from them

RELIGIOUS PARTY SPIRIT 165

in their particular plans and systems than displeased
with those who attack the foundation of our common
hope. These men will write and speak on the subject
in the manner that is to be expected from their temper
and character. Burnet says that, when he was in
France, in the year 1683, ' the method which carried
over the men of the finest parts to popery was this:
they brought themselves to doubt of the whole Chris-
tian religion. When that was once done, it seemed
a more indifferent thing of what side or form they con-
tinued outwardly.' If this was then the ecclesiastic
policy of France, it is what they have since but too
much reason to repent of. They preferred atheism to
a form of religion not agreeable to then* ideas. They
succeeded in destroying that form ; and atheism has
succeeded in destroying them. I can readily give credit
to Burnet' s story ; because I have observed too much
of a similar spirit (for a little of it is ' much too much ')
amongst ourselves. The humour, however, is not
general.

The teachers who reformed our religion in England
bore no sort of resemblance to your present reforming
doctors in Paris. Perhaps they were (like those whom
they opposed) rather more than could be wished under
the influence of a party spirit ; but they were most
sincere believers ; men of the most fervent and exalted
piety ; ready to die (as some of them did die) like true
heroes in defence of their particular ideas of Christianity;
as they would with equal fortitude, and more cheerfully,
for that stock of general truth, for the branches of
which they contended with their blood. These men
would have disavowed with horror those wretches who
claimed a fellowship with them upon no other titles
than those of their having pillaged the persons with
whom they maintained controversies, and their having
despised the common religion, for the purity of which
they exerted themselves with a zeal, which unequivo-
cally bespoke their highest reverence for the substance
of that system which they wished to reform. Many
of their descendants have retained the same zeal, but

166 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

(as less engaged in conflict) with more moderation.
They do not forget that justice and mercy are substan-
tial parts of religion. Impious men do not recommend
themselves to their communion by iniquity and cruelty
towards any description of their fellow-creatures.

We hear these new teachers continually boasting of
their spirit of toleration. That those persons should
tolerate all opinions, who think none to be of estimation,
is a matter of small merit. Equal neglect is not impar-
tial kindness. The species of benevolence, which
arises from contempt, is no true charity. There are
in England abundance of men who tolerate in the true
spirit of toleration. They think the dogmas of religion,
though in different degrees, are all of moment ; and
that amongst them there is, as amongst all things of
value, a just ground of preference. They favour, there-
fore, and they tolerate. They tolerate, not because
they despise opinions, but because they respect justice.
They would reverently and affectionately protect all
religions, because they love and venerate the great
principle upon which they all agree, and the great
object to which they are all directed. They begin
more and more plainly to discern that we have all
a common cause, as against a common enemy. They
will not be so misled by the spirit of faction, as not to
distinguish what is done in favour of their subdivision,
from those acts of hostility, which, through some parti-
cular description, are aimed at the whole corps, in
which they themselves, under another denomination,
are included. It is impossible for me to say what may
be the character of every description of men amongst us.
But I speak for the greater part ; and for them, I must
tell you that sacrilege is no part of their doctrine of
good works ; that, so far from calling you into their
fellowship on such title, if your professors are admitted
to their communion, they must carefully conceal their
doctrine of the lawfulness of the proscription of innocent
men ; and that they must make restitution of all stolen
goods whatsoever. Till then they are none of ours.

You may suppose that we do not approve your con-

SPIRIT OF TOLERATION ! 167

fiscation of the revenues of bishops, and deans, and
chapters, and parochial clergy possessing independent
estates arising from land, because we have the same
sort of establishment in England. That objection, you
will say, cannot hold as to the confiscation of the goods
of monks and nuns, and the abolition of their order.
It is true that this particular part of your general con-
fiscation does not affect England, as a precedent in
point : but the reason applies and it goes a great way.
The long parliament confiscated the lands of deans
and chapters in England on the same ideas upon which
your assembly set to sale the lands of the monastic
orders. But it is in the principle of injustice that the
danger lies, and not in the description of persons on whom
it is first exercised. I see, in a country very near us,
a course of policy pursued, which sets justice, the
common concern of mankind, at defiance. With the
National Assembly of France, possession is nothing,
law and usage are nothing. I see the National Assem-
bly openly reprobate the doctrine of prescription, which
one of the greatest of their own lawyers x tells us, with
great truth, is a part of the law of nature. He tells
us that the positive ascertainment of its limits, and
its security from invasion, were among the causes for
which civil society itself has been instituted. If pre-
scription be once shaken, no species of property is secure,
when it once becomes an object large enough to tempt
the cupidity of indigent power. I see a practice per-
fectly correspondent to their contempt of this great
fundamental part of natural law. I see the confiscators
begin with bishops, and chapters, and monasteries ;
but I do not see them end there. I see the princes of
the blood, who, by the oldest usages of that kingdom
held large landed estates (hardly with the compliment
of a debate), deprived of their possessions, and, in lieu
of their stable, independent property, reduced to the
hope of some precarious, charitable pension, at the
pleasure of an assembly, which of course will pay little

1 Domat.

168 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

regard to the rights of pensioners at pleasure, when it
despises those of legal proprietors. Flushed with the
insolence of the first inglorious victories, and pressed
by the distresses caused by the lust of unhallowed lucre,
disappointed but not discouraged, they have at length
ventured completely to subvert all property of all
descriptions throughout the extent of a great kingdom.
They have compelled all men, in all transactions of
commerce, in the disposal of lands, in civil dealing, and
through the whole communion of life, to accept as
perfect payment and good and lawful tender, the sym-
bols of their speculations en a projected sale of their
plunder. What vestiges of liberty or property have
they left ? The tenant-right of a cabbage-garden,
a year's interest in a hovel, the good-will of an ale-house
or a baker's shop, the very shadow of a constructive
property, are more ceremoniously treated in our par-
liament, than with you the oldest and most valuable
landed possessions, in the hands of the most respectable
personages, or than the whole body of the monied and
commercial interest of your country. We entertain
a high opinion of the legislative authority ; but we
have never dreamt that parliaments had any right
whatever to violate property, to over-rule prescription,
or to force a currency of their own fiction in the place
of that which is real, and recognized by the law of
nations. But you, who began with refusing to submit
to the most moderate restraints, have ended by estab-
lishing an unheard-of despotism. I find the ground
upon which your confiscators go is this : that indeed
their proceedings could not be supported in a court of
justice ; but that the rules of prescription cannot bind
a legislative assembly l. So that this legislative assem-
bly of a free nation sits, not for the security, but for
the destruction of property, and not of property only,
but of every rule and maxim which can give it stability
and of those instruments which can alone give it
circulation.

1 Speech of Mr. Camus, published by order of the National
Assembly.

A SPIRIT OF FANATICISM 169

When the anabaptists of Monster, in the sixteenth
century, had filled Germany with confusion, by their
system of levelling and their wild opinions concerning
property, to what country in Europe did not the progress
of their fury furnish just cause of alarm ? Of all things,
wisdom is the most terrified with epidemical fanaticism,
because of all enemies it is that against which she is
the least able to furnish any kind of resource. We
cannot be ignorant of the spirit of atheistical fanaticism,
that is inspired by a multitude of writings, dispersed
with incredible assiduity and expense, and by sermons
delivered in all the streets and places of public resort
in Paris. These writings and sermons have filled the
populace with a black and savage atrocity of mind,
which supersedes in them the common feelings of nature,
as well as all sentiments of morality and religion ; inso-
much that these wretches are induced to bear with
a sullen patience the intolerable distresses brought upon
them by the violent convulsions and permutations that
have been made in property1. The spirit of prosely-
tism attends this spirit of fanaticism. They have
societies to cabal and correspond at home and abroad
for the propagation of their tenets. The republic of

1 Whether the following description ia strictly true
I know not ; but it is what the publishers would have pass
for true, in order to animate others. In a letter from Toul,
given in one of their papers, is the following passage con-
cerning the people of that district : ' Dans la Revolution
actuelle, ils ont resiste a toutes les seductions du bigotisme,
aux persecutions et aux tracasseries des ennemis de la
Revolution. OuUiant leura plus grands interets pour rendre
hommage aux vues d'ordre general qui ont determine
1'Assemblee Nationale, ils voient, sans se plaindre, sup-
primer cette foule d'etablissemens ecclesiastiques par
lesquels ils subsistoient ; et meme, en perdant lour siege
episcopal la seule de toutes ses ressources qui pouvoit, ou
plutdt qui devoit, en toute equite, leur etre conservee ; con-
damnes d la plus effrayante misere sans avoir tie ni pu $tre
entendus, ils ne murmurent point, ils restent fideles aux
principes du plus pur patriotisme ; ils sont encore prets

170 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

Berne, one of the happiest, the most prosperous, and
the best governed countries upon earth, is one of the
great objects at the destruction of which they aim.
I am told they have in some measure succeeded in
sowing there the seeds of discontent. They are busy
throughout Germany. Spain and Italy have not been
untried. England is not left out of the comprehensive
scheme of their malignant charity : and in England
we find those who stretch out their arms to them, who
recommend their example from more than one pulpit,
and who choose, in more than one periodical meeting,
publicly to correspond with them, to applaud them,
and to hold them up as objects for imitation ; who
receive from them tokens of confraternity, and stan-
dards consecrated amidst their rites and mysteries 1 ;
who suggest to them leagues of perpetual amity, at the
very time when the power, to which our constitution
has exclusively delegated the federative capacity of
this kingdom, may find it expedient to make war upon
them.

It is not the confiscation of our church property from
this example in France that 1 dread, though 1 think
this would be no trifling evil. The great source of my
solicitude is, lest it should ever be considered in England
as the policy of a state to seek a resource in confiscations
of any kind ; or that any one description of citizens
should be brought to regard any of the others as their
proper prey 2. Nations are wading deeper and deeper

a verser leur sang pour le maintien de la constitution, qui
va reduire leur ville a la plus deplorable nuttite.' These
people are not supposed to have endured those sufferings
and injustices in a struggle for liberty, for the same account
states truly that they had been always free ; their patience
in beggary and ruin, and their suffering, without remon-
strance, the most flagrant injustice, if strictly true, can
be nothing but the effect of this dire fanaticism. A great
multitude all over France is in the same condition and the
same temper.

1 See the proceedings of the confederation at Xantes.

'' ' Si plures sunt ii quibus improbe datum est, quam illi

CONFISCATION METHODS 171

into an ocean of boundless debt. Public debts, which
at first were a security to governments, by interesting
many in the public tranquillity, are likely in their
excess to become the means of their subversion. If
governments provide for these debts by heavy imposi-
tions, they perish by becoming odious to the people.
If they do not provide for them, they will be undone by
the efforts of the most dangerous of all parties ; I mean
an extensive, discontented monied interest, injured and
not destroyed. The men who compose this interest
look for their security, in the first instance, to the
fidelity of government ; in the second, to its power.
If they find the old governments effete, worn out, and
with their springs relaxed, so as not to be of sufficient
vigour for their purposes, they may seek new ones that
shall be possessed of more energy ; and this energy will
be derived, not from an acquisition of resources, but
from a contempt of justice. Revolutions are favourable
to confiscation ; and it is impossible to know under

quibus injuste ademptum est, idcirco plus etiam valent ?
Non enim numero hsec judicantur sea pondere. Qnam
autem habet sequitatem, ut agrum multis annis, aut etiam
saeculis ante possessum, qui nullum habuit habeat ; qui
autem habuit amittat ? Ac, propter hoc injuriae genus.
Lacedsemonii Lysandrum Ephorum expulerunt : Agin
regem (quod nunquam antea apud eos acciderat) necave-
runt: exque eo tempore tantse discordiae secutae sunt, ut
et tyranni existerint, et optimates exterminarentur, et pre-
clarissime constituta respublica dilaberetur. Nee vero
solum ipsa cecidit, sed etiam reliquam Grseciam evertit
contagionibus malorura, quae a Lacedsemoniis profectse
manarunt latius.' — After speaking of the conduct of the
model of true partiots, Aratus of Sicyon, which was in a very
different spirit, he says, ' Sic par est agere cum civibus ;
non ut bis jam vidimus, hastam in foro ponere et bona
civium voci subjicere praeconis. At ille Grsecus (id quod
fuit sapientie et praestantis viri) omnibus consulendum esse
putavit : eaque est summa ratio et sapientia boni civis,
commoda civium non divellere, sed omnes eadem sequitate
continere.' — Cic. Off. 1. 2.

172 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

what obnoxious names the next confiscations will be
authorized. I am sure that the principles predominant
in France extend to very many persons, and descriptions
of persons, in all countries, who think their innoxious
indolence their security. This kind of innocence in
proprietors may be argued into inutility ; and inutility
into an unfitness for their estates. Many parts of
Europe are in open disorder. In many others there is
a hollow murmuring underground ; a confused move-
ment is felt that threatens a general earthquake in
the political world. Already confederacies and corres-
pondences of the most extraordinary nature are form-
ing, in several countries 1. In such a state of things
we ought to hold ourselves upon our guard. In all
mutations (if mutations must be) the circumstance which
will serve most to blunt the edge of their mischief, and
to promote what good may be in them, is that they
should find us with our minds tenacious of justice, and
tender of property.

But it will be argued that this confiscation in France
ought not to alarm other nations. They say it is not
made from wanton rapacity ; that it is a great measure
of national policy, adopted to remove an extensive,
inveterate, superstitious mischief. It is with the
greatest difficulty that I am able to separate policy
from justice. Justice is itself the great standing policy
of civil society ; and any eminent departure from it,
under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of
being no policy at all.

When men are encouraged to go into a certain mode
of life by the existing laws, and protected in that mode
as in a lawful occupation — when they have accommo-
dated all their ideas and all their habits to it — when
the law had long made their adherence to its rules
a ground of reputation, and their departure from them
a ground of disgrace and even of penalty — I am sure

1 See two books entitled, ' Einige Originalschriften des

Illuminatenordens.' ' System und Folgen des Illumi-

natenordens.' Munchen, 1787.

EXAMPLE TO EUROPE 173

it is unjust in legislature, by an arbitrary act, to offer
a sudden violence to their minds and their feelings ;
forcibly to degrade them from their state and condi-
tion, and to stigmatize with shame and infamy that
character, and those customs, which before had been
made the measure of their happiness and honour. If
to this be added an expulsion from their habitations,
and a confiscation of all their goods, I am not sagacious
enough to discover how this despotic sport, made of
the feelings, consciences, prejudices, and properties of
men, can be discriminated from the rankest tyranny.

If the injustice of the course pursued in France be
clear, the policy of the measure, that is the public bene-
fit to be expected from it, ought to be at least as evident,
and at least as important. To a man who acts under
the influence of no passion, who has nothing in view
in his projects but the public good, a great difference
will immediately strike him, between what policy would
dictate on the original introduction of such institutions,
and on a question of their total abolition, where they
have cast their roots wide and deep, and where, by long
habit, things more valuable than themselves are so
adapted to them, and in a manner interwoven with
them, that the one cannot be destroyed without notably
impairing the other. He might be embarrassed if the
case were really such as sophisters represent it in their
paltry style of debating. But in this, as in most ques-
tions of state, there is a middle. There is something
else than the mere alternative of absolute destruction,
or unreformed existence. Spartam nactus es ; hanc
exorna. This is, in my opinion, a rule of profound
sense, and ought never to depart from the mind of
a honest reformer. I cannot conceive how any man
can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption,
to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche,
upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.
A man full of warm, speculative benevolence may wish
his society otherwise constituted than he finds it ; but
a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers
how he shall make the most of the existing materials

174 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

of his country. A disposition to preserve, and an
ability to improve, taken together, would be my stan-
dard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the
conception, perilous in the execution.

There are moments in the fortunes of states, when
particular men are called to make improvements by
great mental exertion. In those moments, even when
they seem to enjoy the confidence of their prince and
country, and to be invested with full authority, they
have not always apt instruments. A politician, to do
great things, looks for a power, what our workmen call
a purchase ; and if he finds that power, in politics as in
mechanics, he cannot be at a loss to apply it. In the
monastic institutions, in my opinion, was found a great
poiver for the mechanism of politic benevolence. There
were revenues with a public direction ; there were men
wholly set apart and dedicated to public purposes,
without any other than public ties and public principles ;
men without the possibility of converting the estate of
the community into a private fortune ; men denied to
self-interests, whose avarice is for some community ;
men to whom personal poverty is honour, and implicit
obedience stands in the place of freedom. In vain
shall a man look to the possibility of making such things
when he wants them. The winds blow as they list.
These institutions are the products of enthusiasm ;
they are the instruments of wisdom. Wisdom cannot
create materials ; they are the gifts of nature or of
chance ; her pride is in the use. The perennial exis-
tence of bodies corporate and their fortunes are things
particularly suited to a man who has long views ; who
meditates designs that require time in fashioning, and
which propose duration when they are accomplished.
He is not deserving to rank high, or even to be men-
tioned in the order of great statesmen, who, having
obtained the command and direction of such a power
as existed in the wealth, the discipline, and the habits
of such corporations, as those which you have rashly
destroyed, cannot find any way of converting it to the
great and lasting benefit of his country. On the view

THE STANDARD OF A STATESMAN 175

of this subject as thousand uses suggest themselves to
a contriving mind. To destroy any power, growing
wild from the rank productive force of the human
mind, is almost tantamount, in the moral world, to
the destruction of the apparently active properties of
bodies in the material. It would be like the attempt
to destroy (if it were in our competence to destroy) the
expansive force of fixed air in nitre, or the power of
steam, or of electricity, or of magnetism. These
energies always existed in nature, and they were always
discernible. They seemed, some of them unserviceable,
some noxious, some no better than a sport to children ;
until contemplative ability, combining with practic
skill, tamed their wild nature, subdued them to use,
and rendered them at once the most powerful and the
most tractable agents, in subservience to the great
views and designs of men. Did fifty thousand persons,
whose mental and whose bodily labour you might direct,
and so many hundred thousand a year of a revenue,
which was neither lazy nor superstitious, appear too
big for your abilities to wield ? Had you no way of
using the men but by converting monks into pen-
sioners ? Had you no way of turning the revenue to
account, but through the improvident resource of
a spendthrift sale ? If you were thus destitute of
mental funds, the proceeding is in its natural course.
Your politicians do not understand their trade ; and
therefore they sell their tools.

But the institutions savour of superstition in their
very principle ; and they nourish it by a permanent
and standing influence. This I do not mean to dispute ;
but this ought not to hinder you from deriving from
superstition itself any resources which may thence be
furnished for the public advantage. You derive
benefits from many dispositions and many passions of
the human mind, which are of as doubtful a colour, in
the moral eye, as superstition itself. It was your busi-
ness to correct and mitigate everything which was
noxious in this passion, as in all the passions. But is
superstition the greatest of all possible vices ? In its

possible excess I think it becomes a very great evil.
It is, however, a moral subject ; and of course admits
of all degrees and all modifications. Superstition is
the religion of feeble minds ; and they must be tolerated
in an intermixture of it, in some trifling or some enthu-
siastic shape or other, else you will deprive weak minds
of a resource found necessary to the strongest. The
body of all true religion consists, to be sure, in obedience
to the will of the Sovereign of the world ; hi a confidence
in his declarations ; and in imitation of his perfections.
The rest is our own. It may be prejudicial to the
great end ; it may be auxiliary. Wise men, who as
such, are not admirers (not admirers at least of the
Munera Terras) are not violently attached to these
things, nor do they violently hate them. Wisdom is
not the most severe corrector of folly. They are the
rival follies, which mutually wage so unrelenting a war ;
and which make so cruel a use of their advantages, as
they can happen to engage the immoderate vulgar, on
the one side or the other, in their quarrels. Prudence
would be neuter ; but if, in the contention between
fond attachment and fierce antipathy concerning things
in their nature not made to produce such heats, a pru-
dent man were obliged to make a choice of what errors
and excesses of enthusiasm he would condemn or bear,
perhaps he would think the superstition which builds,
to be more tolerable than that which demolishes — that
which adorns a country, than that which deforms it —
that which endows, than that which plunders — that
which disposes to mistaken beneficence, than that
which stimulates to real injustice— that which leads
a man to refuse to himself lawful pleasures, than that
which snatches from others the scanty subsistence of
their self-denial. Such, I think, is very nearly the
state of the question between the ancient founders of
monkish superstition, and the superstition of the pre-
tended philosophers of the hour.

For the present I postpone all consideration of the
supposed public profit of the sale which, however,
I conceive to be perfectly delusive. I shall here only

THE OCCUPATION OF THE CLERGY 177

consider it as a transfer of property. On the policy
of that transfer I shall trouble you with a few thoughts.

In every prosperous community something more is
produced than goes to the immediate support of the
producer. This surplus forms the income of the landed
capitalist. It will be spent by a proprietor who does
not labour. But this idleness is itself the spring of
labour ; this repose the spur to industry. The only
concern for the state is, that the capital taken in rent
from the land, should be returned again to the industry
from whence it came ; and that its expenditure should
be with the least possible detriment to the morals of
those who expend it, and to those of the people to
•whom it is returned.

In all the views of receipt, expenditure, and personal
employment, a sober legislator would carefully compare
the possessor whom he was recommended to expel,
with the stranger who was proposed to fill his place.
Before the inconveniences are incurred which must
attend all violent revolutions in property through
extensive confiscation, we ought to have some rational
assurance that the purchasers of the confiscated pro-
perty will be in a considerable degree more laborious,
more virtuous, more sober, less disposed to extort an
•unreasonable proportion of the gains of the labourer, or
to consume on themselves a larger share than is fit for
the measure of an individual ; or that they should be
qualified to dispense the surplus in a more steady and
equal mode, so as to answer the purposes of a politic
expenditure, than the old possessors, call those pos
sessors, bishops, or canons, or commendatory abbots,
or monks, or what you please. The monks are lazy.
Be it so. Suppose them no otherwise employed than
by singing in the choir. They are as usefully employed
as those who neither sing nor say. As usefully even
as those who sing upon the stage. They are as usefully
employed as if they worked from dawn to dark in the
innumerable servile, degrading, unseemly, unmanly,
and often most unwholesome and pestiferous occupa-
tions, to which by the social economy so many wretches

BCKKE. IV N

178 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

are inevitably doomed. If it were not generally per-
nicious to disturb the natural course of things, and to
impede, in any degree, the great wheel of circulation
which is turned by the strangely-directed labour of
these unhappy people, I should be infinitely more
inclined forcibly to rescue them from their miserable
industry, than violently to disturb the tranquil repose
of monastic quietude. Humanity, and perhaps policy,
might better justify me in the one than in the other.
It is a subject on which I have often reflected, and
never reflected without feeling from it. I am sure that
no consideration, except the necessity of submitting to
the yoke of luxury, and the despotism of fancy, who in
their own imperious way will distribute the surplus
product of the soil, can justify the toleration of such
trades and employments in a well-regulated state.
But for this purpose of distribution, it seems to me,
that the idle expenses of monks are quite as well directed
as the idle expenses of us lay-loiterers.

When the advantages of the possession and of the
project are on a par, there is no motive for a change.
But in the present case, perhaps they are not upon
a par, and the difference is in favour of the possession.
It does not appear to me, that the expenses of those
whom you are going to expel do, in fact, take a course
so directly and so generally leading to vitiate, and
degrade, and render miserable those through whom they
pass, as the expenses of those favourites whom you are
intruding into their houses. Why should the expendi-
ture of a great landed property, which is a dispersion
of the surplus product of the soil, appear intolerable
to you or to me, when it takes its course through the
accumulation of great libraries, which are the history
of the force and weakness of the human mind ; through
great collections of ancient records, medals and coins,
which attest and explain laws and customs ; through
paintings and statues that, by imitating nature, seem
to extend the limits of creation ; through grand monu-
ments of the dead, which continue the regards and
connexions of life beyond the grave ; through collec-

TRANSFER OF CHURCH PROPERTY 179

tions of the specimens of nature, which become a repre-
sentative assembly of all the classes and families of the
world, that by disposition facilitate, and, by exciting
curiosity, open the avenues to science ? If, by great
permanent establishments, all these objects of expense
are better secured from the inconstant sport of personal
caprice and personal extravagance, are they worse than
if the same tastes prevailed in scattered individuals ?
Does not the sweat of the mason and carpenter, who
toil in order to partake the sweat of the peasant, flow
as pleasantly and as salubriously, in the construction
and repair of the majestic edifices of religion, as in the
painted booths and sordid sties of vice and luxury ; as
honourably and as profitably in repairing those sacred
works, which grow hoary with innumerable years, as
on the momentary receptacles of transient voluptuous-
ness ; in opera-houses, and brothels, and gaming-
houses, and club-houses, and obelisks in the Champ de
Mars ? Is the surplus product of the olive and the vine
worse employed in the frugal sustenance of persons,
whom the fictions of a pious imagination raise to dignity
by construing in the service of God, than in pampering
the innumerable multitude of those who are degraded
by being made useless domestics, subservient to the
pride of man ? Are the decorations of temples an
expenditure less worthy a wise man, than ribbons, and
laces, and national cockades, and petit maisons, and petit
soupers, and all the innumerable fopperies and follies,
in which opulence sports away the burden of its
superfluity ?

We tolerate even these ; not from love of them, but
for fear of worse. We tolerate them, because property
and liberty, to a degree, acquire that toleration. But
why proscribe the other, and surely, in every point of
view, the more laudable use of estates ? Why, through
the violation of all property, through an outrage of
every principle of liberty, forcibly carry them from the
better to the worse ?

This comparison between the new individuals and
the old corps is made upon a supposition that no reform

N2

180 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

could be made in the latter. But, in a question of
reformation, I always consider corporate bodies, whe-
ther sole or consisting of many, to be much more sus-
ceptible of a public direction by the power of the state,
in the use of their property, and in the regulation of
modes and habits of life in their members, than private
citizens ever can be, or perhaps ought to be ; and this
seems to me a very material consideration for those
who undertake anything which merits the name of
a politic enterprise. — So far as to the estates of monas-
teries.

With regard to the estates possessed by bishops, and
canons, and commendatory abbots, I cannot find out
for what reason some landed estates may not be held
otherwise than by inheritance. Can any philosophic
spoiler undertake to demonstrate the positive or the
comparative evil of having a certain, and that too
a large portion of landed property, passing in succession
through persons whose title to it is, always in theory,
and often in fact, an eminent degree of piety, morals,
and learning ; a property, which, by its destination,
in their turn, and on the score of merit, gives to the
noblest families renovation and support, to the lowest
the means of dignity and elevation ; a property, the
tenure of which is the performance of some duty,
(whatever value you may choose to set upon that duty,)
and the character of whose proprietors demands, at
least, an exterior decorum, and gravity of manners ;
who are to exercise a generous but temperate hospitality,
part of whose income they are to consider as a trust for
charity ; and who, even when they fail in their trust,
when they slide from their character, and degenerate
into a mere common secular nobleman or gentleman,
are in no respect worse than those who may succeed
them in their forfeited possessions ? Is it better that
estates should be held by those who have no duty than
by those who have one ? — by those whose character
and destination point to virtues than by those who
have no rule and direction in the expenditure of their
estates but their own will and appetite ? Nor are

CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS 181

these estates held together in the character or with the
evils supposed inherent in mortmain. They pass from
hand to hand with a more rapid circulation than any
other. No excess is good ; and therefore too great
a proportion of landed property may be held officially
for life : but it does not seem to me of material injury
to any commonwealth, that there should exist some
estates that have a chance of being acquired by other
means than the previous acquisition of money.

This letter is grown to a great length, though it is
indeed short with regard to the infinite extent of the
subject. Various avocations have from time to time
called my mind from the subject. I was not sorry to
give myself leisure to observe whether, in the proceed-
ings of the National Assembly, I might not find reasons
to change or to qualify some of my first sentiments.
Everything has confirmed me more strongly in my first
opinions. It was my original purpose to take a view
of the principles of the National Assembly with regard
to the great and fundamental establishments ; and to
compare the whole of what you have substituted in the
place of what you have destroyed, with the several
members of our British constitution. But this plan is
of greater extent than at first I computed, and I find
that you have little desire to take the advantage of any
examples. At present I must content myself with
some remarks upon your establishments ; reserving
for another time what I proposed to say concerning the
spirit of our British monarchy, aristocracy, and demo-
cracy, as practically they exist.

I have taken a view of what has been done by the
governing power in France. I have certainly spoke of
it with freedom. Those whose principle it is to despise
the ancient, permanent sense of mankind, and to set up
a scheme of society on new principles, must naturally
expect that such of us who think better of the judgment
of the human race than of theirs, should consider both
them and their devices as men and schemes upon their
trial. They must take ifc for granted that we attend
much to their reason, but not at all to their authority.

182 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

They have not one of the great influencing prejudices
of mankind in their favour. They avow their hostility
to opinion. Of course they must expect no support
from that influence, which, with every other authority,
they have deposed from the seat of its jurisdiction.

I can never consider this assembly as anything else
than a voluntary association of men, who have availed
themselves of circumstances to seize upon the power
of the state. They have not the sanction and authority
of the character under which they first met. They have
assumed another of a very different nature ; and have
completely altered and inverted all the relations in
which they originally stood. They do not hold the
authority they exercise under any constitutional law
of the state. They have departed from the instructions
of the people by whom they were sent ; which instruc-
tions, as the assembly did not act in virtue of any
ancient usage or settled law, were the sole source of
their authority. The most considerable of their acts
have not been done by great majorities ; and in this
sort of near divisions, which carry only the constructive
authority of the whole, strangers will consider reasons
as well as resolutions.

If they had set up this new, experimental govern-
ment, as a necessary substitute for an expelled tyranny,
mankind would anticipate the time of prescription,
which, through long usage, mellows into legality
governments that were violent in their commencement.
All those who have affections which lead them to the
conservation of civil order would recognize, even in
its cradle, the child as legitimate, which has been pro-
duced from those principles of cogent expediency to
which all just governments owe their birth, and on
which they justify their continuance. But they will
be late and reluctant in giving any sort of countenance
to the operations of a power, which has derived its
birth from no law and no necessity ; but which, on the
contrary, has had its origin in those vices and sinister
practices by which the social union is often disturbed
and sometimes destroyed. This assembly has hardly

183

a year's prescription. We have their own word for it
that they have made a revolution. To make a revolu-
tion is a measure which prima fronte, requires an apology.
To make a revolution is to subvert the ancient state of
our country ; and no common reasons are called for
to justify so violent a proceeding. The sense of man-
kind authorizes us to examine into the mode of acquir-
ing new power, and to criticise on the use that is made
of it, with less awe and reverence than that which is
usually conceded to a settled and recognized authority.

In obtaining and securing their power, the assembly
proceeds upon principles the most opposite to those
which appear to direct them in the use of it. An
observation on this difference will let us into the true
spirit of their conduct. Everything which they have
done, or continue to do, in order to obtain and keep
their power, is by the most common arts. They pro-
ceed exactly as their ancestors of ambition have done
before them. — Trace them through all their artifices,
frauds, and violences, you can find nothing at all that
is new. They follow precedents and examples with
the punctilious exactness of a pleader. They never
depart an iota from the authentic formulas of tyranny
and usurpation. But in all the regulations relative to
the public good, the spirit has been the very reverse of
this. There they commit the whole to the mercy of
untried speculations ; they abandon the dearest
interests of the public to those loose theories, to which
none of them would choose to trust the slightest of his
private concerns. They make this difference, because
in their desire of obtaining and securing power they
are thoroughly in earnest; there they travel in the
beaten road. The public interests, because about
them they have no real solicitude, they abandon wholly
to chance : I say to chance, because their schemes have
nothing in experience to prove their tendency beneficial.

We must always see with a pity not unmixed with
respect, the errors of those who are timid and doubtful
of themselves with regard to points wherein the happi-
ness of mankind is concerned. But in these gentlemen

184 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

there is nothing of the tender, parental solicitude,
which fears to cut up the infant for the sake of an
experiment. In the vastness of their promises, and
the confidence of their predictions, they far out-do all
the boasting of empirics. The arrogance of their pre-
tensions, in a manner provokes and challenges us to
an inquiry into their foundation.

I am convinced that there are men of considerable
parts among the popular leaders in the National Assem-
bly. Some of them display eloquence in their speeches
and their writings. This cannot be without powerful
and cultivated talents. But eloquence may exist
without a proportionable degree of wisdom. When
I speak of ability, I am obliged to distinguish. What
they have done towards the support of their system
bespeaks no ordinary men. In the system itself, taken
as the scheme of a republic constructed for procuring
the prosperity and security of the citizen, and for pro-
moting the strength and grandeur of the state, I con-
fess myself unable to find out anything which displays,
in a single instance, the work of a comprehensive and
disposing mind, or even the provisions of a vulgar
prudence. Their purpose everywhere seems to have
been to evade and slip aside from difficulty. This it
has been the glory of the great masters in all the arts
to confront and to overcome ; and when they had
overcome the first difficulty, to turn it into an instru-
ment for new conquests over new difficulties ; thus to
enable them to extend the empire of their science ; and
even to push forward, beyond the reach of their original
thoughts, the landmarks of the human understanding
itself. Difficulty is a bevere instructor, set over us by
the supreme ordinance of a parental guardian and
legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves,
as he loves us better too. Pater ipse colendi hand
facilem esse viam volnit. He that wrestles with us
strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our
antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with
difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with
our object, and compels us to consider it in all its rela-

DIFFICULTY A SEVERE INSTRUCTOR 185

tions. It will not suffer us to be superficial. It is the
want of nerves of understanding for such a task, it is
the degenerate fondness for tricking short-cuts, and
little fallacious facilities, that has in so many parts of
the world created governments with arbitrary powers.
They have created the late arbitrary monarchy of
France. They have created the arbitrary republic of
Paris. With them defects in wisdom are to be supplied
by the plenitude of force. They get nothing by it.
Commencing their labours on a principle of sloth, they
have the common fortune of slothful men. The diffi-
culties, which they rather had eluded than escaped,
meet them again in their course ; they multiply and
thicken on them ; they are involved, through a laby-
rinth of confused detail, in an industry without limit,
and without direction ; and, in conclusion, the whole
of their work becomes feeble, vicious, and insecure.

It is this inability to wrestle with difficulty which
has obliged the arbitrary assembly of France to com-
mence their schemes of reform with abolition and total
destruction 1. But is it in destroying and pulling down
that skill is displayed ? Your mob can do this as well
at least as your assemblies. The shallowest under-
standing, the rudest hand, is more than equal to that

1 A leading member of the assembly, M. Rabaud de St.
Etienne, has expressed the principle of all their proceedings
as clearly as possible — Nothing can be more simple : —
' Tons les etablissemens en France couronnent le malheur du
peuple : pour le rendre heureux il faut le renouveler ; changer
ses idves ; changer ses loix ; changer ses mceurs ; . . . cfianger
les hommes ; changer leu chases ; changer les mots . . . tout
detruire ; oui, tout detruire ; puisque tout est a recreer.'
This gentleman was chosen president in an assembly not
sitting at Quinze-vingt, or the Petits Maisons ; and com-
posed of persons giving themselves out to be rational
beings ; but neither his ideas, language, or conduct, differ
in the smallest degree from the discourses, opinions, and
actions of those within and without the assembly, who
direct the operations of the machine now at work iu
France.

186 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

task. Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an
hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can
build up in a hundred years. The errors and defects
of old establishments are visible and palpable. It
calls for little ability to point them out ; and, where
absolute power is given, it requires but a word wholly
to abolish the vice and the establishment together.
The same lazy but restless disposition, which loves sloth
and hates quiet, directs these politicians, when they
come to work for supplying the place of what they
have destroyed. To make everything the reverse of
what they have seen is quite as easy as to destroy. No
difficulties occur in what has never been tried. Criticism
is almost baffled in discovering the defects of what has
not existed ; and eager enthusiasm and cheating hope
have all the wide field of imagination, in which they
may expatiate with little or no opposition.

At once to preserve and to reform is quite another
thing. When the useful parts of an old establishment
are kept, and what is superadded is to be fitted to what
is retained, a vigorous mind, steady, persevering atten-
tion, various powers of comparison and combination,
and the resources of an understanding fruitful in expe-
dients are to be exercised ; they are to be exercised
in a continued conflict with the combined force of
opposite vices, with the obstinacy that rejects all
improvement, and the levity that is fatigued and dis-
gusted with everything of which it is in possession.
But you may object — ' A process of this kind is slow.
It is not fit for an assembly, which glories in performing
in a few months the work of ages. Such a mode of
reforming, possibly, might take up many years.'
Without question it might ; and it ought. It is one
of the excellencies of a method in which time is amongst
the assistants, that its operation is slow, and in some
cases almost imperceptible. If circumspection and
caution are a part of wisdom, when we work only upon
inanimate matter, surely they become a part of duty
too, when the subject of our demolition and construc-
tion is not brick and timber, but sentient beings, by the

THE TRUE LAWGIVER 187

sudden alteration of whose state, condition, and habits,
multitudes may be rendered miserable. But it seems
as if it -were the prevalent opinion in Paris that an
unfeeling heart and an undoubting confidence are the
sole qualifications for a perfect legislator. Far different
are my ideas of that high office. The true lawgiver
ought to have a heart full of sensibility. He ought to
love and respect his kind, and to fear himself. It may
be allowed to his temperament to catch his ultimate
object with an intuitive glance ; but his movements
towards it ought to be deliberate. Political arrange-
ment, as it is a work for social ends, is to be only wrought
by social means. There mind must conspire with mind.
Time is required to produce that union of minds which
alone can produce all the good we aim at. Our patience
will achieve more than our force. If I might venture
to appeal to what is so much out of fashion in Paris,
I mean to experience, I should tell you that in my
course I have known and, according to my measure,
have co-operated with great men ; and I have never
yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the
observations of those who were much inferior in under-
standing to the person who took the lead in the busi-
ness. By a slow but well-sustained progress, the effect
of each step is watched ; the good or ill success of the
first gives light to us in the second ; and so, from light
to light, we are conducted with safety through the
whole series. We see that the parts of the system do
not clash. The evils latent in the most promising
contrivances are provided for as they arise. One advan-
tage is as little as possible sacrificed to another. We
compensate, we reconcile, we balance. We are enabled
to unite into a consistent whole the various anomalies
and contending principles that are found in the minds
and affairs of men. From hence arises, not an excel-
lence in simplicity, but, one far superior, an excellence
in composition. Where the great interests of man-
kind are concerned through a long succession of gene-
rations, that succession ought to be admitted into some
share in the councils which are so deeply to affect them.

188 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

If justice requires this, the work itself requires the aid
of more minds than one age can furnish. It is from
this view of things that the best legislators have been
often satisfied with the establishment of some sure,
solid, and ruling principle in government ; a power like
that which some of the philosophers have called
a plastic nature ; and, having fixed the principle, they
have left it afterwards to its own operation.

To proceed in this manner, that is, to proceed with
a presiding principle, and a prolific energy, is with me
the criterion of profound wisdom. What your poli-
ticians think the marks of a bold, hardy genius, are
only proofs of a deplorable want of ability. By their
violent haste, and their defiance of the process of nature,
they are delivered over blindly to every projector and
adventurer, to every alchymist and empiric. They
despair of turning to account anything that is common.
Diet is nothing in their system of remedy. The worst
of it is that this their despair of curing common distem-
pers by regular methods, arises not only from defect
of comprehension, but, I fear, from some malignity of
disposition. Your legislators seem to have taken their
opinions of all professions, ranks, and offices, from the
declamations and buffooneries of satirists ; who would
themselves be astonished if they were held to the letter
of their own descriptions. By listening only to these,
your leaders regard all things only on the side of their
vices and faults, and view those vices and faults under
every colour of exaggeration. It is undoubtedly true,
though it may seem paradoxical ; but in general, those.
who are habitually employed in finding and displaying
faults, are unqualified for the work of reformation :
because their minds are not only unfurnished with pat-
terns of the fair and good, but by habit they come to
take no delight in the contemplation of those things.
By hating vices too much, they come to love men too
little. It is therefore not wonderful that they should
be indisposed and unable to serve them. From hence
arises the complexional disposition of some of your
guides to pull everything in pieces. At this malicious

THE CRITERION OF WISDOM 189

game they display the whole of their quadrinianous
activity. As to the rest, the paradoxes of eloquent
•writers, brought forth purely as a sport of fancy, to try
their talents, to rouse attention, and excite surprise,
are taken up by these gentlemen, not in the spirit ot
the original authors, as means of cultivating their taste
and improving their style. These paradoxes become
with them serious grounds of action, upon which they
proceed in regulating the most important concerns of
the state. Cicero ludicrously describes Cato as endea-
vouring to act, in the commonwealth, upon the school
paradoxes, which exercised the wits of the junior
students in the Stoic philosophy. If this was true of
Cato, these gentlemen copy after him in the manner of
some persons who lived about his time — pede nuck)
Catonem. Mr. Hume told me that he had from Rous-
S3au himself the secret of his principles of composition.
That acute, though eccentric observer, had perceived,
that to strike and interest the public, the marvellous
must be produced ; that the marvellous of the heathen
mythology had long since lost its effects ; that giants,
magicians, fairies, and heroes of romance which suc-
ceeded, had exhausted the portion of credulity which
belonged to their age ; that now nothing was left to
a writer but that species of the marvellous, which might
still be produced, and with as great an effect as ever,
though in another way ; that is, the marvellous in life,
in manners, in characters, and in extraordinary situa-
tions, giving rise to new and unlocked for strokes in
politics and morals. I believe that, were Rousseau
alive and in one of his lucid intervals, he would be
shocked at the practical frenzy of his scholars, who in
their paradoxes are servile imitators ; and even in their
incredulity discover an implicit faith.

Men who undertake considerable things, even in
a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume
ability. But the physician of the state, who, not
satisfied with the cure of distempers, undertakes to
regenerate constitutions, ought to show uncommon
powers. Some very unusual appearances of wisdom

190 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

ought to display themselves on the face of the designs
of those, who appeal to no practice and who copy after
no model. Has any such been manifested ? I shall
take a view (it shall for the subject be a very short one)
of what the assembly has done with regard, first, to
the constitution of the legislature ; in the next place,
to that of the executive power ; then to that of the
judicature ; afterwards to the model of the army ; and
conclude with the system of finance ; to see whether
we can discover in any part of their schemes the por-
tentous ability which may justify these bold under-
takers in the superiority which they assume over
mankind.

It is in the model of the sovereign and presiding part
of this new republic that we should expect their grand
display. Here they were to prove their title to their
proud demands. For the plan itself at large, and for
the reasons on which it is grounded, I refer to the jour-
nals of the assembly of the 29th of September, 1789,
and to the subsequent proceedings which have made
any alterations in the plan. So far as in a matter
somewhat confused I can see light, the system remains
substantially as it has been originally framed. My few
remarks will be such as regard its spirit, its tendency,
and its fitness for framing a popular commonwealth,
which they profess theirs to be, suited to the ends for
which any commonwealth and particularly such a
commonwealth, is made. At the same time I mean
to consider its consistency with itself and its own
principles.

Old establishments are tried by their effects. If the
people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we
presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from
whence good is derived. In old establishments various
correctives have been found for their aberrations from
theory. Indeed they are the results of various neces-
sities and expediencies. They are not often constructed
after any theory ; theories are rather drawn from them.
In them we often see the end best obtained where the
means seem not perfectly reconcilable to what we may

THE NEW DEPARTMENTS 191

fancy was the original scheme. The means taught by
experience may be better suited to political ends than
those contrived in the original project. They again
re-act upon the primitive constitution, and sometimes
improve the design itself, from which they seem to have
departed. I think all this might be curiously exempli-
fied in the British constitution. At worst, the errors
and deviations of every kind in reckoning are found
and computed, and the ship proceeds in her course.
This is 'the case of old establishments ; but in a new
and merely theoretic system, it is expected that every
contrivance shall appear, on the face of it, to answer
its ends ; especially where the projectors are no way
embarrassed with an endeavour to accommodate the
new building to an old one, either in the walls or on the
foundations.

The French builders, clearing away as mere rubbish
whatever they found, and, like their ornamental gar-
deners, forming everything into an exact level, propose
to rest the whole local and general legislature on three
bases of three different kinds ; one geometrical, one
arithmetical, and the third financial ; the first of which
they call the basis of territory ; the second, the basis
of population ; and the third, the basis of contribution.
For the accomplishment of the first of these purposes,
they divide the area of their country into eighty-three
pieces, regularly square, of eighteen leagues by eighteen.
These large divisions are called Departments. These
they portion, proceeding by square measurement, into
seventeen hundred and twenty districts, called Com-
munes. These again they subdivide, still proceeding
by square measurement, into smaller districts, called
Cantons, making in all 6,400.

At first view this geometrical basis of theirs presents
not much to admire or to blame. It calls for no great
legislative talents. Nothing more than an accurate
land surveyor, with his chain, sight, and theodolite, is
requisite for such a plan as this. In the old divisions
of the country, various accidents at various times, and
the ebb and flow of various properties and jurisdictions,

192 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

settled their bounds. These bounds were not made
upon any fixed system undoubtedly. They were subject
to some inconveniences ; but they Avere inconveniences
for which use had found remedies, and habit had sup-
plied accommodation and patience. In this new pave-
ment of square within square, and this organization,
and semi-organization made on the system of Empe-
docles and Buffon, and not upon any politic principle,
it is impossible that innumerable local inconveniences,
to which men are not habituated, must not arise. But
these I pass over, because it requires an accurate
knowledge of the country, which I do not possess, to
specify them.

When these state surveyors came to take a view of
their work of measurement, they soon found that in
politics the most fallacious of all things was geometrical
demonstration. They had then recourse to another
basis (or rather buttress) to support the building, which
tottered on that false foundation. It was evident that
the goodness of the soil, the number of the people,
their wealth, and the largeness of their contribution,
made such infinite variations between square and
square, as to render mensuration a ridiculous standard
of power in the commonwealth, and equality in geo-
metry the most unequal of all measures in the distribu-
tion of men. However, they could not give it up. But
dividing their political and civil representation into
three parts, they allotted one of those parts to the
square measurement, without a single fact or calcula-
tion to ascertain whether this territorial proportion of
representation was fairly assigned, and ought upon any
principle really to be a third. Having, however, given
to geometry this portion (of a third for her dower) out
of compliment, I suppose, to that sublime science, they
left the other two to be scuffled for between the other
parts, population and contribution.

When they came to provide for population, they were
not able to proceed quite so smoothly as they had done
in the field of their geometry. Here their arithmetic
•came to bear upon their juridical metaphysics. Had

THE CANTONS 193

they stuck to their metaphysic principles, the arith-
metical process would be simple indeed. Men with
them are strictly equal, and are entitled to equal rights
in their own government. Each head, on this system,
would have its vote, and every man would vote directly
for the person who was to represent him in the legis-
lature. ' But soft — by regular degrees, not yet.' This
metaphysic principle, to which law, custom, usage,
policy, reason, were to yield, is to yield itself to their
pleasure. There must be many degrees, and some
stages, before the representative can come in contact
with his constituent. Indeed, as we shall soon see,
these two persons are to have no sort of communion
with each other. First, the voters in the Canton, who
compose what they call primary assemblies, are to have
a qualification. What ! a qualification on the inde-
feasible rights of men ? Yes ; but it shall be a very
small qualification. Our injustice shall be very little
oppressive ; only the local valuation of three days'
labour paid to the public. Why, this is not much, I
readily admit, for anything but the utter subversion
of your equalizing principle. As a qualification it
might as well be let alone ; for it answers no one pur-
pose for which qualifications are established ; and, on
your ideas, it excludes from a vote the man of all others
whose natural equality stands the most in need of pro-
tection and defence : I mean the man who has nothing
else but his natural equality to guard him. You order
him to buy the right, which you before told him nature
had given to him gratuitously at his birth, and of which
no authority on earth could lawfully deprive him.
With regard to the person who cannot come up to your
market, a tyrannous aristocracy, as against him, is
established at the very outset, by you who pretend to
be its sworn foe.

The gradation proceeds. These primary assemblies
of the Canton elect deputies to the Commune ; one for
every two hundred qualified inhabitants. Here is the
first medium put between the primary elector and the
representative legislator ; and here a new turnpike ia

194 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

fixed for taxing the rights of men with a second quali-
fication : for none can be elected into the Commune
who does not pay the amount of ten days' labour. Nor
have we yet done. There is still to be another grada-
tion J. These Communes, chosen by the Canton, choose
to the Department ; and the deputies of the Department
choose their deputies to the National Assembly. Here
is a third barrier of a senseless qualification. Every
deputy to the National Assembly must pay, in direct
contribution, to the value of a mark of silver. Of all
these qualifying barriers we must think alike ; that
they are impotent to secure independence ; strong only
to destroy the rights of men.

In all this process, which in its fundamental elements
affects to consider only population upon a principle of
natural right, there is a manifest attention to property ;
which, however just and reasonable on other schemes,
is on theirs perfectly unsupportable.

When they come to their third basis, that of Contri-
bution, we find that they have more completely lost
sight of the rights of men. This last basis rests entirely
on property. A principle totally different from the
equality of men, and utterly irreconcilable to it, is
thereby admitted ; but no sooner is this principle
admitted, than (as usual) it is subverted ; and it is not
subverted (as we shall presently see) to approximate
the inequality of riches to the level of nature. The
additional share in the third portion of representation
(a portion reserved exclusively for the higher contribu-

1 The assembly, in executing the plan of their committee,
made some alterations. They have struck out one stage
in these gradations ; this removes a part of the objection ;
but the main objection, namely, that in their scheme the
first constituent voter has no connexion with the repre-
sentative legislator, remains in all its force. There are-
other alterations, some possibly for the better, some cer-
tainly for the worse : but to the author the merit or
demerit of these smaller alterations appears to be of no
moment, where the scheme itself is fundamentally vicious
and absurd.

THE COMMUNES 195

tion) is made to regard the district only, and not the
individuals in it who pay. It is easy to perceive, by
the course of their reasonings, how much they were
embarrassed by their contradictory ideas of the rights
of men and the privileges of riches. The committee of
constitution do as good as admit that they are wholly
irreconcilable. ' The relation with regard to the con-
tributions, is without doubt null (say they) when the
question is on the balance of the political rights as
between individual and individual ; without which
personal equality ivould be destroyed, and an aristocracy
of the rich would be established. But this inconvenience
entirely disappears when the proportional relation of
the contribution is only considered in the great masses,
and is solely between province and province ; it serves
in that case only to form a just reciprocal proportion
between the cities, without affecting the personal rights
of the citizens.'

Here the principle of contribution, as taken between
man and man, is reprobated as null, and destructive to
equality ; and as pernicious too ; because it leads to
the establishment of an aristocracy of the rich. How-
ever, it must not be abandoned. And the way of get-
ting rid of the difficulty is to establish the inequality
as between department and department, leaving all
the individuals in each department upon an exact par.
Observe that this parity between individuals had been
before destroyed, when the qualifications within the
departments were settled ; nor does it seem a matter
of great importance whether the equality of men be
injured by masses or individually. -l&fl'3&dividual is
not of the same importance in a mkks'r^fjrcfeented by
a few, as in a mass represented by*inikny:.f)crli;;'would
be too much to tell a man, jealous of his 'e4¥Cftflityy'that
the elector has the same franchise who voros? fer^l
members as he who votes for ten. ; k°*

Now take it in the other point of view^a

suppose their principle of representatiofl^ccoWlife^ to

contribution, that is according to rielic&Jf^iSe^W^H

imagined, and to be a necessary basis* fQ/-thei#¥§pl(i[B!ftfI

02

196 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

In this their third basis they assume that riches ought
to be respected, and that justice and policy require that
they should entitle men, in some mode or other, to
a larger share in the administration of public affairs ;
it is now to be seen how the assembly provides for the
pre-eminence, or even for the security of the rich, by
conferring, in virtue of their opulence, that larger mea-
sure of power to their district which is denied to them
personally. I readily admit (indeed I should lay it
down as a fundamental principle) that in a republican
government, which has a democratic basis, the rich do
require an additional security above what is necessary
to them in monarchies. They are subject to envy
and through envy to oppression. On the present scheme
it is impossible to divine what advantage they derive
from the aristocratic preference upon which the unequal
representation of the masses is founded. The rich
cannot feel it, either as a support to dignity, or as
security to fortune : for the aristocratic mass is gene-
rated from purely democratic principles ; and the pre-
ference given to it in the general representation has no
sort of reference to, or connexion with, the persons,
upon account of whose property this superiority of the
mass is established. If the contrivers of this scheme
meant any sort of favour to the rich, in consequence
of their contribution, they ought to have conferred the
privilege either on the individual rich, or on some class
formed of rich persons (as historians represent Servius
Tullius to have done in the early constitution of Rome) ;
because the contest between the rich and the poor is
not a struggle between corporation and corporation
but a contest between men and men ; a competition
not between districts, but between descriptions. It
would answer its purpose better if the scheme were
inverted ; that the votes of the masses were rendered
equal ; and that the votes within each mass were pro-
portioned to property.

Let us suppose one man in a district (it is an easy
supposition) to contribute as much as a hundred of his
neighbours. Against these he has but one vote. If

A DANGEROUS REPRESENTATION 197

there were but one representative for the mass, his poor
neighbours would outvote him by a hundred to one
for that single representative. Bad enough. But
amends are to be made him. How ? The district, in
virtue of his wealth, is to choose, say ten members
instead of one : that is to say, by paying a very large
contribution he has the happiness of being outvoted,
a hundred to one, by the poor, for ten representatives,
instead of being outvoted exactly in the same propor-
tion for a single member. In truth, instead of bene-
fiting by this superior quantity of representation, the
rich man is subjected to an additional hardship. The
increase of representation within his province sets up
nine persons more, and as many more than nine as
there may be democratic candidates, to cabal and
intrigue, and to natter the people at his expense and
to his oppression. An interest is by this means held
out to multitudes of the inferior sort, in obtaining
a salary of eighteen livres a day (to them a vast object
besides the pleasure of a residence in Paris, and their
share in the government of the kingdom. The more
the objects of ambition are multiplied and become
democratic, just in that proportion the rich are endan-
gered.

Thus it must fare between the poor and the rich in
the province deemed aristocratic, which in its internal
relation is the very reverse of that character. In its
external relation, that is, in its relation to the other
provinces, I cannot see how the unequal representation,
which is given to masses on account of wealth, becomes
the means of preserving the equipoise and the tran-
quillity of the commonwealth. For if it be one of the
objects to secure the weak from being crushed by the
strong (as in all society undoubtedly it is) how are the
smaller and poorer of these masses to be saved from
the tyranny of the more wealthy ? Is it by adding to
the wealthy further and more systematical means of
oppressing them ? When we come to a balance of
representation between corporate bodies, provincial
interests, emulations, and jealousies are full as likely

198 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

to arise among them as among individuals ; and their
divisions are likely to produce a much hotter spirit of
dissension, and something leading much more nearly
to a war.

I see that these aristocratic masses are made upon
what is called the principle of direct contribution.
Nothing can be a more unequal standard than this.
The indirect contribution, that which arises from
duties on consumption, is in truth a better standard,
and follows and discovers wealth more naturally than
this of direct contribution. It is difficult, indeed, to
fix a standard of local preference on account of the
one, or of the other, or of both, because some provinces
may pay the more of either or of both, on account of
causes not intrinsic, but originating from those very
districts over whom they have obtained a preference
in consequence of their ostensible contribution. If
the masses were independent, sovereign bodies, who
were to provide for a federative treasury by distinct
contingents, and that the revenue had not (as it has)
many impositions running through the whole, which
affect men individually, and not corporately, and
which, by their nature, confound all territorial limits,
something might be said for the basis of contribution
as founded on masses. But of all things, this repre-
sentation, to be measured by contribution, is the most
difficult to settle upon principles of equity in a country,
which considers its districts as members of a whole.
For a great city, such as Bordeaux, or Paris, appears
to pay a vast body of duties, almost out of all assignable
proportion to other places, and its mass is considered
accordingly. But are these cities the true contributors
in that proportion ? No. The consumers of the com-
modities imported into Bordeaux, who are scattered
through all France, pay the import duties of Bordeaux.
The produce of the vintage in Guienne and Languedoc
give to that city the means of its contribution growing
out of an export commerce. The landholders who
spend their estates in Paris, and are thereby the creators
of that city, contribute for Paris from the provinces

'DIRECT CONTRIBUTION' 199

out of which their revenues arise. Very nearly the
same arguments will apply to the representative share
given on account of direct contribution : because the
direct contribution must be assessed on wealth real or
presumed ; and that local wealth will itself arise from
causes not local and which therefore in equity ought
not to produce a local preference.

It is very remarkable that in this fundamental
regulation which settles the representation of the mass
upon the direct contribution, they have not yet settled
how that direct contribution shall be laid, and how
apportioned. Perhaps there is some latent policy
towards the continuance of the present assembly in
this strange procedure. However, until they do this,
they can have no certain constitution. It must depend
at last upon the system of taxation, and must vary
•with every variation in that system. As they have
contrived matters, their taxation does not so much
depend on their constitution, as their constitution on
their taxation. This must introduce great confusion
among the masses ; as the variable qualification for votes
within the district must, if ever real contested elections
take place, cause infinite internal controversies.

To compare together the three bases, not on their
political reason, but on the ideas on which the assembly
works, and to try its consistency with itself, we cannot
avoid observing, that the principle which the committee
call the basis of population, does not begin to operate
from the same point with the two other principles called
the bases of territory and of contribution, which are both
of an aristocratic nature. The consequence is that,
where all three begin to operate together, there is the
most absurd inequality produced by the operation of
the former on the two latter principles. Every canton
contains four square leagues, and is estimated to con-
tain, on the average, 4,000 inhabitants, or 680 voters
in the primary assemblies, which vary in numbers with
the population of the canton, and send one deputy to
the commune for every 200 voters. Nine cantons make
a commune.

200 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

Now let us take a canton containing a seaport town
of trade, or a great manufacturing town. Let us suppose
the population of this canton to be 12,700 inhabitants,
or 2,193 voters, forming three primary assemblies and
sending ten deputies to the commune.

Oppose to this one canton two others of the remaining
eight in the same commune. These -we may suppose
to have their fair population of 4,000 inhabitants, and
680 voters each, or 8,000 inhabitants and 1,360 voters,
both together. These will form only two primary
assemblies, and send only six deputies to the commune.

When the assembly of the commune comes to vote
on the basis of territory, which principle is first admitted
to operate in that assembly, the single canton which
has half the territory of the other two, will have ten
voices to six in the election of three deputies to the
assembly of the department, chosen on the express
ground of a representation of territory. This inequality,
striking as it is, will be yet highly aggravated, if we
suppose, as we fairly may, the several other cantons of
the commune to fall proportionably short of the average
population, as much as the principal canton exceeds it.

Now as to the basis of contribution, which also is
a principle admitted first to operate in the assembly
of the commune. Let us again take one canton, such
as is stated above. If the whole of the direct contribu-
tions paid by a great trading or manufacturing town
be divided equally among the inhabitants, each indivi-
dual will be found to pay much more than an individual
living in the country according to the same average.
The whole paid by the inhabitants of the former will
be more than the whole paid by the inhabitants of the
latter — we may fairly assume one-third more. Then
the 12,700 inhabitants, or 2,193 voters of the canton
will pay as much as 19,050 inhabitants, or 3,289 voters
of the other cantons, which are nearly the estimated
proportion of inhabitants and voters of five other
cantons. Now the 2,193 votes will, as I before said,
send only ten deputies to the assembly ; the 3,289
voters will send sixteen. Thus, for an equal share in

BASIS OF CONTRIBUTION 201

the contribution of the whole commune, there will be
a difference of sixteen voices to ten in voting for deputies
to be chosen on the principle of representing the general
contribution of the whole commune.

By the same mode of computation we shall find
15,875 inhabitants, or 2,741 voters of the other cantons,
who pay one-sixth LESS to the contribution of the whole
commune, will have three voices MORE than the 12,700
inhabitants, or 2,193 voters of the one canton.

Such is the fantastical and unjust inequality between
mass and mass, in this curious repartition of the rights
of representation arising out of territory and contribu-
tion. The qualifications which these confer are in
truth negative qualifications, that give a right in an
inverse proportion to the possession of them.

In this whole contrivance of the three bases, consider
it in any light you please, I do not see a variety of
objects reconciled in one consistent whole, but several
contradictory principles reluctantly and irreconcilably
brought and held together by your philosophers, like
wild beasts shut up in a cage, to claw and bite each
other to their mutual destruction.

I am afraid I have gone too far into their way of
considering the formation of a constitution. They
have much, but bad, metaphysics ; much, but bad,
geometry ; much, but false, proportionate arithmetic ;
but if it were all as exact as metaphysics, geometry,
and arithmetic ought to be, and if their schemes were
perfectly consistent in all their parts, it would make
only a more fair and sightly vision. It is remarkable,
that, in a great arrangement of mankind, not one
reference whatsoever is to be found to anything moral
or anything politic ; nothing that relates to the con-
cerns, the actions, the passions, the interests of men.
Hominem non sapiunt.

You see I only consider this constitution as electoral,
and leading by steps to the National Assembly. I do
not enter into the internal government of the depart-
ments, and their genealogy through the communes and
cantons. These local governments are, in the original

202 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

plan, to be as nearly as possible composed in the same
manner and on the same principles with the elective
assemblies. They are each of them bodies perfectly
compact and rounded in themselves.

You cannot but perceive in this scheme that it has
a direct and immediate tendency to sever France into
a variety of republics, and to render them totally inde-
pendent of each other, without any direct constitutional
means of coherence, connexion, or subordination, except
what may be derived from their acquiescence in the
determinations of the general congress of the ambas-
sadors from each independent republic. Such in reality
is the National Assembly, and such governments
I admit do exist in the world, though in forms infinitely
more suitable to the local and habitual circumstances
of their people. But such associations, rather than
bodies politic, have generally been the effect of neces-
sity, not choice ; and I believe the present French
power is the very first body of citizens who, having
obtained full authority to do with their country what
they pleased, have chosen to dissever it in this barbarous
manner.

It is impossible not to observe that, in the spirit of
this geometrical distribution and arithmetical arrange-
ment, these pretended citizens treat France exactly
like a country of conquest. Acting as conquerors, they
have imitated the policy of the harshest of that harsh
race. The policy of such barbarous victors, who con-
temn a subdued people and insult their feelings, has
ever been, as much as in them lay, to destroy all
vestiges of the ancient country, in religion, in polity,
in laws and in manners ; to confound all territorial
limits ; to produce a general poverty ; to put up their
properties to auction ; to crush their princes, nobles,
and pontiffs ; to lay low everything which had lifted
its head above the level, or which could serve to combine
or rally, in their distresses, the disbanded people, under
the standard of old opinion. They have made France
free in the manner in which those sincere friends to the
rights of mankind, the Romans, freed Greece, Macedon,

A VARIETY OF REPUBLICS 203

and other nations. They destroyed the bonds of their
union, under colour of providing for the independence
of each of their cities.

When the members who compose these new bodies
of cantons, communes, and departments, arrangements
purposely produced through the medium of confusion,
begin to act, they will find themselves, in a great mea-
sure, strangers to one another. The electors and
elected throughout, especially in the rural cantons, will
be frequently without any civil habitudes or connexions,
or any of that natural discipline which is the soul of
a true republic. Magistrates and collectors of revenue
are now no longer acquainted with their districts,
bishops with their dioceses, or curates with their parishes.
These new colonies of the rights of men bear a strong
resembl.ance to that sort of military colonies which
Tacitus has observed upon in the declining policy of
Rome. In better and wiser days (whatever course
they took with foreign nations) they were careful to
make the elements of a methodical subordination and
settlement to be coeval ; and even to lay the founda-
tions of discipline in the military '. But, when all the
good arts had fallen into ruin, they proceeded, as your
assembly does, upon the equality of men, and with as
little judgment and as little care for those things
which make a republic tolerable or durable. But in
this, as well as almost every instance, your new com-
monwealth is born, and bred, and fed, in those corrup-
tions which mark degenerated and worn-out republics.
Your child comes into the world with the symptoms of

1 Non, ut olira, universae legiones deducebantur cum
tribunis, et centurionibus, et sui cujusque ordinis militibus,
ut consensu et caritate rempublicam afficerent ; 6ed ignoti
inter se, diversis manipulis, sine rectore, sine affectibus
imituis, quasi ex alio genere mortalium, repente in unum
collect!, numerus magis quam colonia. Tac. Annal. 1. 14
sect. 27. All this will be still more applicable to the uncon-
nected, rotatory, biennial national assemblies, in this absurd
and senseless constitution.

204 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

death ; the fades Hippocratica forms the character of
its physiognomy, and the prognostic of its fate.

The legislators who framed the ancient republics
knew that their business was too arduous to be accom-
plished with no better apparatus than the metaphysics
of an undergraduate, and the mathematics and arith-
metic of an exciseman. They had to do with men
and they were obliged to study human nature. They
had to do with citizens and they were obliged to study
the effects of those habits which are communicated by
the circumstances of civil life. They were sensible that
the operation of this second nature on the first produced
a new combination ; and thence arose many diversities
amongst men, according to their birth, their education,
their professions, the periods of their lives, their resi-
dence in towns or in the country, their several ways of
acquiring and of fixing property, and according to the
quality of the property itself, all which rendered them
as it were so many different species of animals. From
hence they thought themselves obliged to dispose their
citizens into such classes, and to place them in such
situations in the state as their peculiar habits might
qualify them to fill, and to allot to them such appro-
priated privileges as might secure to them what their
specific occasions required, and which might furnish
to each description such force as might protect it in
the conflict caused by the diversity of interests that
must exist, and must contend, in all complex society :
for the legislator would have been ashamed that the
coarse husbandman should well know how to assort
and to use his sheep, horses, and oxen, and should have
enough of common sense not to abstract and equalize
them all into animals, without providing for each kind
an appropriate food, care, and employment ; whilst he,
the economist, disposer, and shepherd of his own kin-
dred, subliming himself into an airy metaphysician,
was resolved to know nothing of his flocks but as men
in general. It is for this reason that Montesquieu
observed very justly that, in their classification of the
citizens, the great legislators of antiquity made the

THE ANCIENT MODELS 205

greatest display of their powers, and even soared above
themselves. It is here that your modern legislators
have gone deep into the negative series and sunk even
below tjieir own nothing. As the first sort of legislators
attended to the different kinds of citizens, and combined
them into one commonwealth, the others, the meta-
physical and alchemistical legislators, have taken the
directly contrary course. They have attempted to
confound all sorts of citizens, as well as they could, into
one homogeneous mass ; and then they divided this
their amalgama into a number of incoherent republics.
They reduce men to loose counters, merely for the sake
of simple telling, and not to figures whose power is to
arise from their place in the table. The elements of
their own metaphysics might have taught them better
lessons The troll of their categorical table might have
informed them that there was something else in the
intellectual world besides substance and quantity. They
might learn from the catechism of metaphysics that
there were eight heads more 1, in every complex deli-
beration, which they have never thought of ; though
these, of all the ten, are the subjects on which the skill
of man can operate anything at all.

So far from this able disposition of some of the old
republican legislators, which follows with a solicitous
accuracy the moral conditions and propensities of men,
they have levelled and crushed together all the orders
which they found, even under the coarse unartificial
arrangement of the monarchy, in which mode of
government the classing of the citizens is not of so much
importance as in a republic. It is true, however, that
every such classification, if properly ordered, is good
in all forms of government ; and composes a strong
barrier against the excesses of despotism, as well as
it is the necessary means of giving effect and perma-
nence to a republic. For want of something of this
kind, if the present project of a republic should fail, all

1 Qualitas, Relatio, Actio, Passio, Ubi, Quando, Situs,
Habitus.

206 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

securities to a moderated freedom fail along with it ; all
the indirect restraints which mitigate despotism are
removed ; insomuch that if monarchy should ever again
obtain an entire ascendency in France, under this or
any other dynasty, it will probably be, if not volun-
tarily tempered, at setting out, by the wise and virtuous
counsels of the prince, the most completely arbitrary
power that has ever appeared on earth. This is to play
a most desperate game.

The confusion which attends on all such proceedings,
they even declare to be one of their objects, and they
hope to secure their constitution by a terror of a return
of those evils which attended their making it. ' By
this,' say they, ' its destruction will become difficult
to authority, which cannot break it up without the
entire disorganization of the whole state.' They pre-
sume, that if this authority should ever come to the
same degree of power that they have acquired, it would
make a more moderate and chastised use of it, and
would piously tremble entirely to disorganize the state
in the savage manner that they have done. They
expect from the virtues of returning despotism, the
security which is to be enjoyed by the offspring of their
popular vices.

I wish, sir, that you and my readers would give an
attentive perusal to the work of M. de Calonne on this
subject. It is indeed not only an eloquent but an able
and instructive performance. I confine myself to what
he says relative to the constitution of the new state
and to the condition of the revenue. As to the disputes
of this minister with his rivals, I do not wish to pro-
nounce upon them. As little do I mean to hazard
any opinion concerning his ways and means, financial
or political, for taking his country out of its present
disgraceful and deplorable situation of servitude,
anarchy, bankruptcy, and beggary. I cannot speculate
quite so sanguinely as he does : but he is a Frenchman,
and has a closer duty relative to those objects, and
better means of judging of them, than I can have.
I wish that the formal avowal which he refers to, made

M. DE CALONNE 207

by one of the principal leaders in the assembly con-
cerning the tender, cy of their scheme to bring France
not only from a monarchy to a republic, but from
a republic to a mere confederacy, may be very parti-
cularly attended to. It adds new force to my observa-
tions ; and indeed M. de Calonne's work supplies my
deficiencies by many new and striking arguments on
most of the subjects of this letter *.

It is this resolution, to break their country into
separate republics, which has driven them into the
greatest number of their difficulties and contradictions.
If it were not for this, all the questions of exact equality,
and these balances, never to be settled, of individual
rights, population, and contribution, would be wholly
useless. The representation, though derived from
parts, would be a duty which equally regarded the
whole. Each deputy to the assembly would be the
representative of France, and of all its descriptions,
of the many and of the few, of the rich and of the poor,
of the great districts and of the small. All these dis-
tricts would themselves be subordinate to some standing
authority, existing independently of them, an authority
in which their representation, and everything that
belongs to it, originated, and to which it was pointed.
This standing, unalterable, fundamental government
would make, and it is the only thing which could make,
that territory truly and properly a whole. With us,
when we elect popular representatives, we send them
to a council, in which each man individually is a subject,
and submitted to a government complete in all it&
ordinary functions. With you the elective assembly
is the sovereign, and the sole sovereign ; all the mem-
bers are therefore integral parts of this sole sovereignty.
But with us it is totally different. With us the repre-
sentative, separated from the other parts, can have no
action and no existence. The government is the point
of reference of the several members and districts of our
representation. This is the centre of our unity. This

1 See 1'Etat de la France, p. 363.

208 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

government of reference is a trustee for the whole, and
not for the parts. So is the other branch of our public
council, I mean the House of Lords. With us the king
and the lords are several and joint securities for the
equality of each district, each province, each city.
When did you hear in Great Britain of any province
suffering from the inequality of its representation ;
what district from having no representation at all ?
Not only our monarchy and our peerage secure the
equality on which our unity depends, but it is the
spirit of the House of Commons itself. The very
inequality of representation, which is so foolishly com-
plained of, is perhaps the very thing which prevents us
from thinking or acting as members for districts.
Cornwall elects as many members as all Scotland. But
is Cornwall better taken care of than Scotland ? Few
trouble their heads about any of your bases, out of
some giddy clubs. Most of those who wish for any
change, upon any plausible grounds, desire it on dif-
ferent ideas.

Your new constitution is the very reverse of ours in
its principle ; and I am astonished how any persons
could dream of holding out anything done in it, as an
example for Great Britain. With you there is little,
or rather no connexion between the last representative
and the first constituent. The member who goes to
the National Assembly is not chosen by the people, nor
accountable to them. There are three elections before
he is chosen : two sets of magistracy intervene between
him and the primary assembly, so as to render him,
as I have said, an ambassador of a state, and not the
representative of the people within a state. By this
the whole spirit of the election is changed ; nor can
any corrective, which your constitution-mongers have
devised, render him anything else than what he is.
The very attempt to do it would inevitably introduce
a confusion, if possible, more horrid than the present.
There is no way to make a connexion between the
original constituent and the representative, but by the
circuitous means which may lead the candidate to

THE ELECTION 209

apply in the first instance to the primary electors, in
order that by their authoritative instructions (and
something more perhaps) these primary electors may
force the two succeeding body of electors to make
a choice agreeable to their wishes. But this would
plainly subvert the whole scheme. It would be to
plunge them back into that tumult and confusion of
popular election which, by their interposed gradation
of elections, they mean to avoid, and at length to risk
the whole fortune of the state with those who have the
least knowledge of it and the least interest in it. This
is a perpetual dilemma, into which they are thrown by
the vicious, weak, and contradictory principles they
have chosen. Unless the people break up and level
this gradation, it is plain that they do not at all sub-
stantially elect to the assembly ; indeed they elect as
little in appearance as reality.

What is it we all seek for in an election ? To answer
its real purposes ; you must first possess the means
of knowing the fitness of your man ; and then you
must retain some hold upon him by personal obligation
or dependence. For what end are these primary
electors complimented, or rather mocked with a choice ?
They can never know anything of the qualities of him
that is to serve them nor has he any obligation what-
soever to them. Of all the powers unfit to be delegated
by those who have any real means of judging, that
most peculiarly unfit is what relates to a personal
choice. In case of abuse that body of primary electors
can never call the representative to an account for
his conduct. He is too far removed from them in the
chain of representation. If he acts improperly at the
end of his two years' lease, it does not concern him
for two years more. By the new French constitution
the best and the wisest representatives go equally with
the worst into this Limbus Patrum. Their bottoms
are supposed foul and they must go into dock to be
refitted. Every man who has served in an assembly
is ineligible for two years after. Just as these magis-
trates begin to learn their trade, like chimney-sweepers,

210 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

they are disqualified for exercising it. Superficial, new,
petulant acquisition, and interrupted, dronish, broken,
ill recollection, is to be the destined character of all
your future governors. Your constitution has too
much of jealousy to have much of sense in it. You
consider the breach of trust in the representative so
principally that you do not at all regard the question
of his fitness to execute it.

This purgatory interval is not unfavourable to
a faithless representative, who may be as good a can-
vasser as he was a bad governor. In this time he may
cabal himself into a superiority over the wisest and
most virtuous. As, in the end, all the members of this
elective constitution are equally fugitive, and exist only
for the election, they may be no longer the same per-
sons who had chosen him, to whom he is to be respon-
sible when he solicits for a renewal of his trust. To
call all the secondary electors of the commune to
account, is ridiculous, impracticable, and unjust ; they
may themselves have been deceived in their choice, as
the third set of electors, those of the department, may
be in theirs. In your elections responsibility cannot
exist.

Finding no sort of principle of coherence with each
other in the nature and constitution of the several new
republics of France, I considered what cement the
legislators had provided for them from any extraneous
materials. Their confederations, their spectacles, their
civic feasts, and their enthusiasm, I take no notice of ;
they are nothing but mere tricks ; but, tracing their
policy through their actions, I think I can distinguish
the arrangements by which they propose to hold these
republics together. The first is the confiscation, with
the compulsory paper currency annexed to it ; the
second is the supreme power of the city of Paris ; the
third, is the general army of the state. Of this last
I shall reserve what I have to say until I come to con-
sider the army as a head by itself.

As to the operation of the first (the confiscation and
paper currency) merely as a cement, I cannot deny

THE PAPER CURRENCY 211

that these, the one depending on the other, may for
some time compose some sort of cement, if their mad-
ness and folly in the management, and in the tempering
of the parts together, does not produce a repulsion in
the very outset. But allowing to the scheme some
coherence and some duration, it appears to me that if,
after a while, the confiscation should not be found
sufficient to support the paper coinage (as I am morally
certain it will not), then, instead of cementing, it will
add infinitely to the dissociation, distraction, and
confusion of these confederate republics, both with
relation to each other, and to the several parts within
themselves. But if the confiscation should so far suc-
ceed as to sink the paper currency, the cement is gone
with the circulation. In the meantime its binding
force will be very uncertain and it will straighten or
relax with every variation in the credit of the paper.

One thing only is certain in this scheme, which is an
effect seemingly collateral, but direct, I have no doubt,
in the minds of those who conduct this business, that
is, its effect in prodding an oligarchy in every one of
the republics. A paper circulation, not founded on
any real money deposited or engaged for, amounting
already to four-and-forty millions of English money,
and this currency by force substituted in the place of
the coin of the kingdom, becoming thereby the sub-
stance of its revenue, as well as the medium of all its
commercial and civil intercourse, must put the whole
of what power, authority, and influence is left, in any
form whatsoever it may assume, into the hands of the
managers and conductors of this circulation.

In England we feel the influence of the Bank ;
though it is only the centre of a voluntary dealing.
He knows little indeed of the influence of money upon
mankind who does not see the force of the management
of a monied concern, which is so much more extensive,
and in its nature so much more depending on the
managers than any of ours. But this is not merely
a money concern. There is another member in the
system inseparably connected with this money manage-
p2

212 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

ment. It consists in the means of drawing out at dis-
cretion portions of the confiscated lands for sale ; and
carrying on a process of continual transmutation of
paper into land, and of land into paper. When we
follow this process in its effects, we may conceive some-
thing of the intensity of the force with which this system
must operate. By this means the spirit of money
jobbing and speculation goes into the mass of land
itself, and incorporates with it. By this kind of opera-
tion, that species of property becomes (as it were)
volatilized ; it assumes an unnatural and monstrous
activity, and thereby throws into the hands of the
several managers, principal and subordinate, Parisian
and provincial, all the representative of money, and
perhaps a full tenth part of all the land in France,
which has now acquired the worst and most pernicious
part of the evil of a paper circulation, the greatest
possible uncertainty in its value. They have reversed
the Latonian kindness to the landed property of Delos.
They have sent theirs to be blown about, like the light
fragments of a wreck, oras et littpra circum.

The new dealers, being all habitually adventurers,
and without any fixed habits or local predilections, will
purchase to job out again, as the market of paper, or
of money, or of land, shall present an advantage. For
though a holy bishop thinks that agriculture will derive
great advantages from the ' enlightened ' usurers who
are to purchase the church confiscations, I, who am
not a good, but an old farmer, with great humility beg
leave to tell bis late lordship that usury is not tutor ot
agriculture ; and if the word ' enlightened ' be under-
stood according to the new dictionary, as it always is
in your new schools, I cannot conceive how a man's
not believing in God can teach him to cultivate the
earth with the least of any additional skill or encourage-
ment. ' Diis immortalibus sero,' said an old Roman,
when he held one handle of the plough, whilst Death
held the other. Though you were to join in the com-
mission all the directors of the two academies to the
directors of the Caisse d1 Escompte, an old experienced

FOUNDED UPON GAMING 213

peasant is worth them all. I have got more informa-
tion upon a curious and interesting branch of husbandry,
in one short conversation with an old Carthusian monk,
than I have derived from all the Bank directors that
I have ever conversed with. However, there is no
cause for apprehension from the meddling of money-
dealers with rural economy. These gentlemen are too
wise in their generation. At first, perhaps, their tender
and susceptible imaginations may be captivated with
the innocent and unprofitable delights of a pastoral
life ; but in a little time they will find that agriculture
is a trade much more laborious, and much less lucrative
than that which they had left. After making its pane-
gyric, they will turn their backs on it like their great pre-
cursor and prototype. They may, like him, begin by
singing ' Beatus ille ' — but what will be the end ?

Haec ubi locutus foenerator Alphius,
Jam jam futurus rusticus
Omnem relegit idibus pecuniam ;
Quaerit calendis ponere.

They will cultivate the Caisse d'figlise, under the sacred
auspices of this prelate, with much more profit than its
vineyards and its corn-fields. They will employ their
talents according to their habits and their interests.
They will not follow the plough whilst they can direct
treasuries and govern provinces.

Your legislators, in everything new, are the very
first who have founded a commonwealth upon gaming,
and infused this spirit into it as its vital breath. The
great object in these politics is to metamorphose France,
from a great kingdom into one great play-table ; to
turn its inhabitants into a nation of gamesters ; to
make speculation as extensive as life ; to mix it with
all its concerns ; and to divert the whole of the hopes
and fears of the people from their usual channels into
the impulses, passions, and superstitions of those who
live on chances. They loudly proclaim their opinion
that this their present system of a republic cannot
possibly exist without this kind of gaming fund ; and

214 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

that the very thread of its life is spun out of the staple
of these speculations. The old gaming in funds was
mischievous enough undoubtedly ; but it was so only
to individuals. Even when it had its greatest extent,
in the Mississippi and South Sea, it affected but
few, comparatively ; where it extends further, as in
lotteries, the spirit has but a single object. But where
the law, which in most circumstances forbids and in
none countenances gaming, is itself debauched, so as
to reverse its nature and policy, and expressly to force
the subject to this destructive table, by bringing the
spirit and symbols of gaming into the minutest matters,
and engaging everybody in it, and in everything, a more
dreadful epidemic distemper of that kind is spread than
yet has appeared in the world. With you a man can
neither earn nor buy his dinner without a speculation.
What he receives in the morning will not have the same
value at night. What he is compelled to take as pay
for an old debt will not be received as the same when
he comes to pay a debt contracted by himself ; nor will
it be the same when by prompt payment he would avoid
contracting any debt at all. Industry must wither
away. Economy must be driven from your country.
Careful provision will have no existence. Who will
labour without knowing the amount of his pay ? Who
will study to increase what none can estimate ? Who
will accumulate when he does not know the value of
what he saves ? If you abstract it from its uses in
gaming, to accumulate your paper wealth, would be
not the providence of a man, but the distempered
instinct of a jackdaw.

The truly melancholy part of the policy of syste-
matically making a nation of gamesters is this, that,
though all are forced to play, few can understand the
game ; and fewer still are in a condition to avail them-
selves of that knowledge. The many must be the dupes
of the few who conduct the machine of these specula-
tions. What effect it must have on the country people
is visible. The townsman can calculate from day to
day ; not so the inhabitant of the country. When the

A NATION OF GAMESTERS 215

peasant first brings his corn to market, the magistrate
in the town obliges him to take the assignat at par ;
•when he goes to the shop with this money, he finds it
seven per cent, the worse for crossing the way. This
market he will not readily resort to again. The towns-
people will be inflamed ! they will force the country-
people to bring their corn. Resistance will begin, and
the murders of Paris and St. Denis may be renewed all
through France.

What signifies the empty compliment paid to the
country, by giving it, perhaps, more than its share in
the theory of your representation ? Where have you
placed the real power over monied and landed circula-
tion ? Where have you placed the means of raising
and falling the value of every man's freehold ? Those,
whose operations can take from, or add ten per cent,
to, the possessions of every man in France, must be
the masters of every man in France. The whole of the
power obtained by this revolution will settle in the
towns among the burghers and the monied directors
who lead them. The landed gentleman, the yeoman,
and the peasant have, none of them, habits, or inclina-
tions, or experience, which can lead them to any share
in this the sole source of power and influence now left
in France. The very nature of a country life, the very
nature of landed property, in all the occupations, and
all the pleasures they afford, render combination and
arrangement (the sole way of procuring and exerting
influence) in a manner impossible amongst country
people. Combine them by all the art you can, and all
the industry, they are always dissolving into indivi-
duality. Anything in the nature of incorporation is
almost impracticable amongst them. Hope, fear,
alarm, jealousy, the ephemerous tale that does its busi-
ness, and dies in a day, all these things, which are the
reins and spurs by which leaders check or urge the
minds of followers, are not easily employed, or hardly
at all, amongst scattered people. They assemble, they
arm, they act with the utmost difficulty, and at the
greatest charge. Their efforts, if ever they can be

commenced, cannot be sustained. They cannot pro-
ceed systematically. If the country gentlemen attempt
an influence through the mere income of their property,
what is it to that of those who have ten times their
income to sell, and who can ruin their property by
bringing their plunder to meet it at market t If the
landed man wishes to mortgage, he falls the value of
his land and raises the value of assignats. He augments
the power of his enemy by the very means he must take
to contend with him. The country gentleman there-
fore, the officer by sea and land, the man of liberal
views and habits, attached to no profession, will be aa
completely excluded from the government of his coun-
try as if he were legislatively proscribed. It is obvious
that in the towns all the things which conspire against
the country gentlemen combine in favour of the money
manager and director. In towns combination is
natural. The habits of burghers, their occupations,
their diversion, their business, their idleness, con-
tinually bring them into mutual contact. Their
virtues and their vices are sociable ; they are always
in garrison ; and they come embodied and half disci-
plined into the hands of those who mean to form them
for civil or military action.

All these considerations leave no doubt on my mind
that, if this monster of a constitution can continue,
France will be wholly governed by the agitators in
corporations, by societies in the towns formed of
directors in assignats, and trustees for the sale of
church lands, attorneys, agents, money jobbers, specu-
lators, and adventurers, composing an ignoble oligarchy,
founded on the destruction of the crown, the church,
the nobility, and the people. Here end all the deceitful
dreams and visions of the equality and rights of men.
In ' the Serbonian bog ' of this base oligarchy they are
all absorbed, sunk, and lost for ever.

Though human eyes cannot trace them, one would be
tempted to think some great offences in France must
cry to heaven, which has thought fit to punish it with
a subjection to a vile and inglorious domination, in

SUPREMACY OF PARIS 217

which no comfort or compensation is to be found in
any even of those false splendours which, playing about
other tyrannies, prevent mankind from feeling them-
selves dishonoured even whilst they are oppressed.
I must confess I am touched with a sorrow, mixed with
some indignation, at the conduct of a few men, once of
great rank, and still of great character, who, deluded
with specious names, have engaged in a business too
deep for the line of their understanding to fathom ;
who have lent their fair reputation, and the authority
of their high-sounding names, to the designs of men
with whom they could not be acquainted ; and have
thereby made their very virtues operate to the ruin of
their country.

So far as to the first cementing principle.

The second material of cement for their new republic
is the superiority of the city of Paris : and this I admit
is strongly connected with the other cementing principle
of paper circulation and confiscation. It is in this part
of the project we must look for the cause of the destruc-
tion of all the old bounds of provinces and jurisdictions,
ecclesiastical and secular, and the dissolution of all
ancient combinations of things, as well as the formation
of so many small unconnected republics. The power
of the city of Paris is evidently one great spring of all
their politics. It is through the power of Paris, now
become the centre and focus of jobbing, that the leaders
of this faction direct, or rather command, the whole
legislative and the whole executive government.
Everything therefore must be done which can confirm
the authority of that city over the other republics.
Paris is compact ; she has an enormous strength,
wholly disproportioned to the force of any of the square
republics ; and this strength is collected and condensed
within a very narrow compass. Paris has a natural and
easy connexion of its parts, which will not be affected
by any scheme of a geometrical constitution, nor does
it much signify whether its proportion of representation
be more or less, since it has the whole draft of fishes in
its drag-net. The other divisions of the kingdom

218 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

being hackled and torn to pieces, and separated from
all their habitual means and even principles of union,
cannot, for some time at least, confederate against her.
Nothing was to be left in all the subordinate members
but weakness, disconnexion, and confusion. To con-
firm this part of the plan, the assembly has lately come
to a resolution that no two of their republics shall have
the same commander-in-chief.

To a person who takes a view of the whole, the strength
of Paris, thus formed, will appear a system of general
weakness. It is boasted that the geometrical policy
has been adopted, that all local ideas should be sunk,
and that the people should be no longer Gascons, Picards,
Bretons, Normans ; but Frenchmen, with one country,
one heart, and one assembly. But instead of being all
Frenchmen, the greater likelihood is, that the inhabitants
of that region will shortly have no country. No man
ever was attached by a sense of pride, partiality, or
real affection to a description of square measurements.
He never will glory in belonging to the chequer No. 71,
or to any other badge-ticket. We begin our public
affections in our families. No cold relation is a zealous
citizen. We pass on to our neighbourhoods, and our
habitual provincial connexions. These are inns and
resting places. Such divisions of our country as have
been formed by habit, and not by a sudden jerk of
authority, were so many little images of the great coun-
try in which the heart found something which it could
fill. The love to the whole is not extinguished by this
subordinate partiality. Perhaps it is a sort of elemental
training to those higher and more large regards, by
which alone men come to be affected, as with their own
concern, in the prosperity of a kingdom so extensive
as that of France. In that general territory itself, as
in the old name of provinces, the citizens are interested
from old prejudices and unreasoned habits, and not
on account of the geometric properties of its figure.
The power and pre-eminence of Paris, does certainly
press down and hold these republics together as long
as it lasts. But, for the reasons I have already given
you, I think it cannot last very long.

NO SENATE PROVIDED 219

Passing from the civil creating and the civil cementing
principles of this constitution to the National Assembly
•which is to appear and act as sovereign, we see a body
in its constitution with every possible power, and no
possible external control. We see a body without
fundamental laws, without established maxims, with-
out respected rules of proceeding, which nothing can
keep firm to any system whatsoever. Their idea of
their powers is always taken at the utmost stretch of
legislative competency, and their examples for common
cases from the exception of the most urgent necessity.
The future is to be in most respects like the present
assembly ; but, by the mode of the new elections and
the tendency of the new circulations, it will be purged
of the small degree of internal control existing in a
minority chosen originally from various interests, and
preserving something of their spirit. If possible, the
next assembly must be worse than the present. The

E resent, by destroying and altering everything, will
save to their successors apparently nothing popular
to do. They will be roused by emulation and example
to enterprises the boldest and the most absurd. To
suppose such an assembly sitting in perfect quietude is
ridiculous.

Your all-sufficient legislators, in their hurry to do
everything at once, have forgot one thing that seems
essential, and which, I believe, never has been before,
in the theory or the practice, omitted by any projector
of a republic. They have forgot to constitute a senate,
or something of that nature and character. Never,
before this time, was heard of a body politic composed
of one- legislative and active assembly, and its executive
officers, without such a council ; without something
to which foreign states might connect themselves ;
something to which, in the ordinary detail of govern-
ment, the people could look up ; something which
might give a bias and steadiness and preserve some-
thing like consistency in the proceedings of state.
Such a body kings generally have as a council. A
monarchy may exist without it : but it seems to be in

220 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

the very essence of a republican government. It holds
a sort of middle place between the supreme power
exercised by the people, or immediately delegated from
them, and the mere executive. Of this there are no
traces in your constitution ; and in providing nothing
of this kind, your Solons and Numas have, as much as
in any thing else, discovered a sovereign incapacity.

Let us now turn our eyes to what they have dono
towards the formation of an executive power. For
this they have chosen a degraded king. This their first
executive officer is to be a machine, without any sort
of deliberative discretion in any one act of his function.
At best he is but a channel to convey to the National
Assembly such matter as it may import that body to
know. If he had been made the exclusive channel,
the power would not have been without its importance ;
though infinitely perilous to those who would choose
to exercise it. But public intelligence and statement
of facts may pass to the assembly with equal authenti-
city, through any other conveyance. As to the
means, therefore, of giving a direction to measures by
the statement of an authorized reporter, this office of
intelligence is as nothing.

To consider the French scheme for an executive
officer, in its two natural divisions of civil and political —
in the first it must be observed that, according to the
new constitution, the higher parts of judicature, in
either of its lines, are not in the king. The King of
France is not the fountain of justice. The judges,
neither the original nor the appellate, are of his nomina-
tion. He neither proposes the candidates, nor has
a negative on the choice. He is not even the public
prosecutor. He serves only as a notary to authenticate
the choice made of the judges in the several districts.
By his officers he is to execute their sentence. When
we look into the true nature of his authority, he appears
to be nothing more than a chief of bumbailiffs, ser-
jeants-at-mace, catchpoles, jailers, and hangmen. It
is impossible to place anything called royalty in a more
degrading point of view. A thousand times better

THE KING A BUM-BAILIFF 221

had it been for the dignity of this unhappy prince, that
he had nothing at all to do with the administration of
justice, deprived as he is of all that is venerable and all
that is consolatory in that function, without power of
originating any process ; without a power of suspension,
mitigation or pardon. Everything in justice that is
vile and odious is thrown upon him. It was not for
nothing that the assembly has been at such pains to
remove the stigma from certain offices, when they were
resolved to place the person who had lately been their
king in a situation but one degree above the executioner,
and in an office nearly of the same quality. It is not
in nature that, situated as the King of the French now is,
he can respect himself or can be respected by others.

View this new executive officer on the side of his
political capacity, as he acts under the orders of the
National Assembly. To execute laws is a royal office ;
to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a
political executive magistracy, though merely such, is
a great trust. It is a trust, indeed, that has much
depending upon its faithful and diligent performance,
both in the person presiding in it and in all its subor-
dinates. Means of performing this duty ought to be
given by regulation ; and dispositions towards it ought
to be infused by the circumstances attendant on the
trust. It ought to be environed with dignity, authority,
and consideration, and it ought to lead to glory. The
office of execution is an office of exertion. It is not
from impotence we are to expect the tasks of power.
What sort of person is a king to command executory
service, who has no means whatsoever to reward it ?
Not in a permanent office ; not in a grant of land ; no,
not in a pension of fifty pounds a pear ; not in the
vainest and most trivial title. In France the king is
no more the fountain of honour than he is the fountain
of justice. All rewards, all distinctions, are in other
hands. Those who serve the king can be actuated by
no natural motive but fear ; by a fear of everything
except their master. His functions of internal coercion
are as odious as those which he exercises in the depart-

222 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

ment of justice. If relief is to be given to any munici-
pality, the assembly gives it. If troops are to be sent
to reduce them to obedience to the assembly, the king
is to execute the order ; and upon every occasion he
is to be spattered over with the blood of his people.
He has no negative ; yet his name and authority i3
used to enforce every harsh decree. Nay, he must
concur in the butchery of those who shall attempt to
free him from his imprisonment, or show the slightest
attachment to his person or to his ancient authority.

Executive magistracy ought to be constituted in
such a manner that those who compose it should be
disposed to love and to venerate those whom they ara
bound to obey. A purposed neglect, or, what is worse,
a little but perverse and malignant obedience must
be the ruin of the wisest counsels. In vain will the law
attempt to anticipate or to follow such studied neglects
and fraudulent attentions. To make them act zealously
is not in the competence of law. Kings, even such as
are truly kings, may and ought to bear the freedom of
subjects that are obnoxious to them. They may too,
without derogating from themselves, bear even the
authority of such persons, if it promotes their service.
Louis XIII. mortally hated the Cardinal de Richelieu ;
but his support of that minister against his rivals was
the source of all the glory of his reign and the solid
foundation of his throne itself. Louis XIV., when
come to the throne, did not love the Cardinal Mazarin ;
but for his interests he preserved him in power. When
old, he detested Louvois ; but for years, whilst he
faithfully served his greatness, he endured his person.
When George II. took Mr. Pitt, who certainly was not
agreeable to him, into his councils, he did nothing which
could humble a wise sovereign. But these ministers
who were chosen by affairs, not by affections, acted
in the name of, and in trust for, kings ; and not as their
avowed, constitutional, and ostensible masters. I
think it impossible that any king, when he has recovered
his first terrors, can cordially infuse vivacity and
vigour into measures which he knows to be dictated by

POSITION OF THE KING 223

those, who, he must be persuaded, are in the highest
degree ill affected to his person. Will any ministers
who serve such a king (or whatever he may be called)
with but a decent appearance of respect cordially obey
the orders of those whom but the other day in his name
they had committed to the Bastile ? will they obey the
orders of those whom, whilst they were exercising
despotic justice upon them, they conceived they were
treating with lenity ; and for whom, in a prison, they
thought they had provided an asylum ? If you expect
such obedience, amongst your other innovations and
regenerations, you ought to make a revolution in nature
and provide a new constitution for the human mind.
Otherwise, your supreme government cannot harmonize
with its executory system. There are cases in which
we cannot take up with names and abstractions. You
may call half a dozen leading individuals, whom we
have reason to fear and hate, the nation. It makes
no difference than to make us fear and hate them the
more. If it had been thought justifiable and expedient
to make such a revolution by such means, and through
such persons, as you have made yours, it would have
been more wise to have completed the business of the
fifth and sixth of October. The new executive officer
would then owe his situation to those who are his
creators as well as his masters ; and he might be bound
in interest, in the society of crime, and (if in crimes there
could be virtues) in gratitude to serve those who had
promoted him to a place of great lucre and great sensual
indulgence ; and of something more : for more he
must have received from those who certainly would not
have limited an aggrandized creature, as they have
done a submitting antagonist.

A king circumstanced as the present, if he is totally
stupified by his misfortunes, so as to think it not the
necessity, but the premium and privilege of life, to eat
and sleep, without any regard to glory, can never be fit
for the office. If he feels as men commonly feel, he
must be sensible that an office so circumstanced is one
in which he can obtain no fame or reputation. He has

224 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

no generous interest that can excite him to action. At
best, his conduct will be passive and defensive. To
inferior people such an office might be matter of honour.
But to be raised to it, and to descend to it, are different
things, and suggest different sentiments. Does ho
really name the ministers ? They will have a sympathy
with him. Are they forced upon him ? The whole
business between them and the nominal king will be
mutual counteraction. In all other countries the
office of ministers of state is of the highest dignity. In
France it is full of peril, and incapable of glory. Rivals,
however, they will have in their nothingness, whilst
shallow ambition exists in the world, or the desire of
a miserable salary is an incentive to short-sighted avarice.
Those competitors of the ministers are enabled by your
constitution to attack them in their vital parts, whilst
they have not the means of repelling their charges in
any other than the degrading character of culprits.
The ministers of state in France are the only persons
in that country who are incapable of a share in the
national councils. What ministers ! What councils !
What a nation ! — But they are responsible. It is a
poor service that is to be had from responsibility. The
elevation of mind to be derived from fear will never
make a nation glorious. Responsibility prevents
crimes. It makes all attempts against the laws
dangerous. But for a principle of active and zealous
service, none but idiots could think of it. Is the con-
duct of a war to be trusted to a man who may abhor
its principle ; who, in every step he may take to render
it successful, confirms the power of those by whom he
is oppressed ? Will foreign states seriously treat with
him who has no prerogative of peace or war ; no, not so
much as in a single vote by himself or his ministers, or
by any one whom he can possibly influence ? A state
of contempt is not a state for a prince : better get rid
of him at once.

I know it will be said that these humours in the court
and executive government will continue only through
this generation ; and that the king has been brought to

THE MINISTERS 225

declare the dauphin shall be educated in a conformity
to his situation. If he is made to conform to his situa-
tion, he will have no education at all. His training
must be worse even than that of an arbitrary monarch.
If he reads — whether he reads or not, some good or
evil genius will tell him his ancestors were kings.
Thenceforward hi« object must be to assert himself and
to avenge his parents. This you will say is not his duty.
That may be ; but it is nature ; and whilst you pique
nature against you, you do unwisely to trust to duty.
In this futile scheme of polity the state nurses in its
bosom, for the present, a source of weakness, per-
plexity, counteraction, inefficiency, and decay ; and
it prepares the means of its final ruin. In short, I see
nothing in the executive force (I cannot call it authority)
that has even an appearance of vigour, or that has the
smallest degree of just correspondence or symmetry,
or amicable relation with the supreme power, either as
it now exists or as it is planned for the future govern-
ment.

You have settled, by an economy as perverted as
the policy, two 1 establishments of government ; one
real, one fictitious. Both maintained at a vast ex-
pense ; but the fictitious at, I think, the greatest.
Such a machine as the latter is not worth the grease of
its wheels. The expense is exorbitant ; and neither the
show nor the use deserve the tenth part of the charge.
Oh ! but I don't do justice to the talents of the legis-
lators : I don't allow, as I ought to do, for necessity.
Their scheme of executive force was not their choice.
This pageant must be kept. The people would not
consent to part with it. Bight ; I understand you.
You do, in spite of your grand theories, to which you
would have heaven and earth to bend, you do know
how to conform yourselves to the nature and circum-
stances of things. But when you were obliged to con-
form thus far to circumstances, you ought to have

1 In reality three, to reckon the provincial republican
establishments.

BURKE. IV Q

226 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

carried your submission farther, and to have made,
what you were obliged to take, a proper instrument
and useful to its end. That was in your power. For
instance, among many others, it was in your power to
leave to your king the right of peace and war. What !
to leave to the executive magistrate the most dangerous
of all prerogatives ? I know none more dangerous ;
nor any one more necessary to be so trusted. I do
not say that this prerogative ought to be trusted to
your king, unless he enjoyed other auxiliary trusts along
with it, which he does not now hold. But, if he did
possess them, hazardous as they are undoubtedly,
advantages would arise from such a constitution, more
than compensating the risk. There is no other way of
keeping the several potentates of Europe from intriguing
distinctly and personally with the members of your
assembly, from intermeddling in all your concerns, and
fomenting, in the heart of your country, the most per-
nicious of all factions ; factions in the interest and
under the direction of foreign powers. From that
worst of evils, thank God, we are still free. Your skill,
if you had any, would be well employed to find out
indirect correctives and controls upon this perilous
trust. If you did not like those which in England we
have chosen, your leaders might have exerted their
abilities in contriving better. If it were necessary to
exemplify the consequences of such an executive
government as yours, in the management of great affairs,
I should refer you to the late reports of M. de Montmorin
to the National Assembly and all the other proceedings
relative to the differences between Great Britain and
Spain. It would be treating your understanding with
disrespect to point them out to you.

I hear that the persons who are called ministers have
signified an intention of resigning their places. 1 am
rather astonished that they have not resigned long
since. For the universe I would not have stood in the
situation in which they have been for this last twelve-
month. They wished well, I take it for granted, to the
revolution. Let this fact be as it may, they could not,

A STATE OF CONTEMPT 227

placed as they were upon an eminence, though an emi-
nence of humiliation, but be the first to see collectively,
and to feel each in his own department, the evils which
have been produced by that revolution. In every
step which they took, or forbore to take, they must
have felt the degraded situation of their country, and
their utter incapacity of serving it. They are in a
species of subordinate servitude, in which no men
before them were ever seen. Without confidence from
their sovereign, on whom they were forced, or from the
assembly who forced them upon him, all the noble func-
tions of their office are executed by committees of the
assembly, without any regard whatsoever to their
personal, or their official authority. They are to
execute, without power ; they are to be responsible,
without discretion ; they are to deliberate, without
choice. In their puzzled situation, under two sovereigns,
over neither of whom they have any influence, they
must act in such a manner as (in effect, whatever they
may intend) sometimes to betray the one, sometimes the
other, and always to betray themselves. Such has been
their situation ; such must be the situation of those
who succeed them. I have much respect, and many
good wishes, for Mr. Necker. I am obliged to him for
attentions. I thought, when his enemies had driven
him from Versailles, that his exile was a subject of
most serious congratulation — sed multce urbes et publica
vota vicerunt. He is now sitting on the ruins of the
finances and of the monarchy of France.

A great deal more might be observed on the strange
constitution of the executory part of the new govern-
ment ; but fatigue must give bounds to the discussion of
subjects which in themselves have hardly any limits.

As little genius and talent am I able to perceive in
the plan of judicature formed by the National Assembly.
According to their invariable course, the framers of
your constitution have begun with the utter abolition
of the parliaments. These venerable bodies, like the
rest of the old government, stood in need of reform,
even though there should be no change made in the
Q2

228 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

monarchy. They required several more alterations
to adapt them to the system of a free constitution.
But they had particulars in their constitution, and
those not a few, which deserved approbation from the
wise. They possessed one fundamental excellence ; they
were independent. The most doubtful circumstance
attendant on their office, that of its being vendible,
contributed, however, to this independency of character.
They held for life. Indeed, they may be said to have
held by inheritance. Appointed by the monarch, they
were considered as nearly out of his power. The most
determined exertions of that authority against them
only showed their radical independence. They com-
posed permanent bodies politic, constituted to resist
arbitrary innovation ; and from that corporate consti-
tution, and from most of their forms, they were well
calculated to afford both certainty and stability to the
laws. They had been a safe asylum to secure these
laws in all the revolutions of humour and opinion. They
had saved that sacred deposit of the country during
the reigns of arbitrary prices, and the struggles of
arbitrary factions. They kept alive the memory and
record of the constitution. They were the great
security to private property ; which might be said
(when personal liberty had no existence) to be, in
fact, as well guarded in France as in any other country.
Whatever is supreme in a state, ought to have as much
as possible ite judicial authority so constituted, as
not only not to depend upon it but in some sort to
balance it. It ought to give a security to its justice
against its power. It ought to make its judicature, as
it were, something exterior to the state.

These parliaments had furnished, not the best
certainly, but some considerable corrective to the ex-
cesses and vices of the monarchy. Such an independent
judicature was ten times more necessary when a demo-
cracy became the absolute power of the country. In
that constitution, elective, temporary, local judges,
such as you have contrived, exercising their dependent
functions in a narrow society, must be the worst of all

THE JUDICATURE 229

tribunals. In them it will be vain to look for any re-ap-
pearance of justice towards strangers, towards the ob-
noxious rich, towards the minority of routed parties,
towards all those who in the election have supported
unsuccessful candidates. It will be impossible to keep
the new tribunals clear of the worst spirit of faction.
All contrivances by ballot we know experimentally to
be vain and childish to prevent a discovery of inclina-
tions. Where they may the best answer the purposes
of concealment, they answer to produce suspicion, and
this is a still more mischievous cause of partiality.

If the parliaments had been preserved, instead of
being dissolved at so ruinous a change to the nation,
they might have served in this new commonwealth,
perhaps not precisely the same (I do not mean an exact
parallel) but nearly the same purposes as. the court and
senate of Areopagus did in Athens ; that is, as one of
the balances and correctives to the evils of a light and
unjust democracy. Every one knows that this tribunal
was the great stay of that state ; every one knows with
what care it was upheld, and with what a religious awe
it was consecrated. The parliaments were not wholly
free from faction, I admit ; but this evil was exterior
and accidental, and not so much the vice of their con-
stitution itself, as it must be in your new contrivance of
sexennial elective judicatories. Several English com-
mend the abolition of the old tribunals, as supposing
that they determined everything by bribery and cor-
ruption. But they have stood the test of monarchic
and republican scrutiny. The court was well disposed
to prove corruption on those bodies when they were
dissolved in 1771. — Those who have again dissolved
them would have done the same if they could — but
both inquisitions having failed, I conclude that gross
pecuniary corruption must have been rather rare
amongst them.

It would have been prudent, along with the parlia-
ments, to preserve their ancient power of registering,
and of remonstrating at least, upon all the decrees of the
National Assembly, as they did upon those which passed

230 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

in the time of the monarchy. It would be a means of
squaring the occasional decrees of a democracy to some
principles of general jurisprudence. The vice of the
ancient democracies, and one cause of their ruin, was
that they ruled, as you do, by occasional decrees,
psephismata. This practice soon broke in upon the
tenor and consistency of the laws ; it abated the
respect of the people towards them ; and totally des-
troyed them in the end.

Your vesting the power of remonstrance which, in
the time of the monarchy, existed in the parliament of
Paris, in your principal executive officer, whom, in spite
of common sense, you persevere in calling king, is the
height of absurdity. You ought never to suffer
remonstrance from him who is to execute. This is to
understand neither council nor execution ; neither
authority nor obedience. The person whom you call
king, ought not to have this power, or he ought to have
more.

Your present arrangement is strictly judicial. In-
stead of imitating your monarchy, and seating your
judges on a bench of independence, your object is to
reduce them to the most blind obedience. As you
have changed all things, you have invented new princi-
ples of order. You first appoint judges, who, I suppose,
are to determine according to law, and then you let
them know that, at some time or other, you intend to
give them some law by wiiich they are to determine.
Any studies which they have made (if any they have
made) are to be useless to them. But to supply these
studies, they are to be sworn to obey all the rules, orders,
and instructions, which from time to time they are to
receive from the National Assembly. These if they
submit to, they leave no ground of law to the subject.
They become complete and most dangerous instruments
in the hands of the governing power, which, in the
midst of a cause, or on the prospect of it, may wholly
change the rule of decision. If these orders of the
National Assembly come to be contrary to the will of
the people, who locally choose those judges, such con-

SELECTION OF JUDGES 231

fusion must happen as is terrible to think of. For the
judges owe their places to the local authority ; and the
commands they are sworn to obey come from those who
have no share in their appointment. In the meantime
they have the example of the court of Chatdet to en-
courage and guide them in the exercise of their functions.
That court is to try criminals sent to it by the National
Assembly, or brought before it by other courses of dela-
tion. They sit under a guard to save their own lives.
They know not by what law they judge, nor under what
authority they act, nor by what tenure they hold. It
is thought that they are sometimes obliged to condemn
at peril of their lives. This is not perhaps certain, nor
can it be ascertained ; but when they acquit, we know
they have seen the persons whom they discharge, with
perfect impunity to the actors, hanged at the door of
their court.

The assembly indeed promise that they will form
a body of law, which shall be short, simple, clear, and
so forth. That is by their short laws, they will leave
much to the discretion of the judge, whilst they have
exploded the authority of all the learning which could
make judicial discretion (a thing perilous at best)
deserving the appellation of a sound discretion.

It is curious to observe, that the administrative bodies
are carefully exempted from the jurisdiction of these
new tribunals. That is, those persons are exempted
from the power of the laws, who ought to be the most
entirely submitted to them. Those who execute public
pecuniary trusts, ought of all men to be the most strictly
held to their duty. One would have thought that it
must have been among your earliest cares, if you did
not mean that those administrative bodies should be
real, sovereign, independent states, to form an awful
tribunal, like your late parliaments, or like our king's
bench, where all corporate officers might obtain pro-
tection in the legal exercise of their functions, and
would find coercion if they trespassed against their
legal duty. But the cause of the exemption is plain.
These administrative bodies are the great instruments

232 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

of the present leaders in their progress through demo-
cracy to oligarchy. They must therefore be put above
the law. It will be said that the legal tribunals which
you have made are unfit to coerce them. They are
undoubtedly. They are unfit for any rational purpose.
It will be said, too, that the administrative bodies will
be accountable to the general assembly. This, I fear,
is talking without much consideration of the nature of
that assembly or of these corporations. However, to
be subject to the pleasure of that assembly, is not to
be subject to law either for protection or for constraint.

This establishment of judges as yet wants something
to its completion. It is to be crowned by a new tribunal.
This is to be a grand state judicature ; and it is to
judge of crimes committed against the nation, that is,
against the power of the assembly. It seems as if they
had something in their view of the nature of the high
court of justice erected in England during the time of
the great usurpation. As they have not yet finished
this part of the scheme, it is impossible to form a direct
judgment upon it. However, if great care is not taken
to form it in a spirit very different from that which has
guided them in their proceedings relative to state
offences, this tribunal, subservient to their inquisition,
the committee of research, will extinguish the last sparks
of liberty in France, and settle the most dreadful and
arbitrary tyranny ever known in any nation. If they
wish to give to this tribunal any appearance of liberty
and justice, they must evoke them, or send to it, the
causes relative to their own members, at their pleasure.
They must also remove the seat of that tribunal out
of the republic of Paris l.

Has more wisdom been displayed in the constitution
of your army than what is discoverable in your plan of
judicature ? The able arrangement of this part is the
more difficult, and requires the greater skill and atten-

1 For further elucidations upon the subject of all these
judicatures, and of the committee of research, see M. de
Calonne's work.

THE ARMY 233

tion, not only as a great concern in itself, but as it is
the third cementing principle in the new body of
republics, which you call the French nation. Truly it
is not easy to divine what that army may become at
last. You have voted a very large one, and on good ap-
pointments, at least fully equal to your apparent means
of payment. But what is the principle of its discipline ?
or whom is it to obey ? You have got the wolf by the
ears, and I wish you joy of the happy position in which
you have chosen to place yourselves, and in which you
are well circumstanced for a free deliberation, relatively
to that army, or to anything else.

The minister and secretary of state for the war
department is M. de la Tour du Pin. This gentleman,
like his colleagues in administration, is a most zealous
assertor of the revolution, and a sanguine admirer of
the new constitution, which originated in that event.
His statement of facts, relative to the military of
France, is important, not only from his official and
personal authority, but because it displays very clearly
the actual condition of the army in France, and because
it throws light on the principles upon which the assem-
bly proceeds, in the administration of this critical
object. It may enable us to form some judgment, how
far it may be expedient in this country to imitate the
martial policy of France.

M. de la Tour du Pin, on the 4th of last June, comes
to give an account of the state of his department, as it
exists under the auspices of the National Assembly.
No man knows it so well ; no man can express it
better. Addressing himself to the National Assembly,
he says, ' His majesty has this day sent me to apprize
you of the multiplied disorders of which every day he
receives the most distressing intelligence. The army
[le corps militaire] threatens to fall into the most
turbulent anarchy. Entire regiments have dared to
violate at once the respect due to the laws, to the
king, to the order established by your decrees, and
to the oaths which they have taken with the most awful
solemnity. Compelled by my duty to give you infor-

234 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

mation of these excesses, my heart bleeds when I con-
sider who they are that have committed them. Those,
against whom it is not in my power to withhold the
most grievous complaints, are a part of that very
soldiery which to this day have been so full of honour
and loyalty, and with whom, for fifty years, I have lived
the comrade and the friend.

' What incomprehensible spirit of delirium and
delusion has all at once led them astray ? Whilst you
are indefatigable in establishing uniformity in the empire
and moulding the whole into one coherent and con-
sistent body ; whilst the French are taught by you, at
once the respect which the laws owe to the rights of
man, and that which the citizens owe to the laws, the
administration of the army presents nothing but dis-
turbance and confusion. I see in more than one corps
the bonds of discipline relaxed or broken ; the most
unheard-of pretensions avowed directly and without
any disguise ; the ordinances without force ; the
chiefs without authority ; the military chest and the
colours carried off ; the authority of the king himself
[risum teneatis ?~\ proudly defied ; the officers despised,
degraded, threatened, driven away, and some of them
prisoners in the midst of their corps, dragging on a
precarious life in the bosom of disgust and humiliation.
To fill up the measure of all these horrors, the com-
mandants of places have had their throats cut, under
the eyes and almost in the arms of their own soldiers.

' These evils are great ; but they are not the worst
consequences which may be produced by such military
insurrections. Sooner or later they may menace the
nation itself. The nature of things requires that the
army should never act but as an instrument. The
moment that, erecting itself into a deliberate body, it
shall act according to its own resolutions, the govern-
ment, be it what it may, will immediately degenerate into
a military democracy ; a species of political monster,
which has always ended by devouring those who have
produced it.

' After all this, who must not be alarmed at the irregu-

THE ARMY 235

lar consultations, and turbulent committees, formed in
some regiments by the common soldiers and non-com-
missioned officers, without the knowledge, or even in
contempt of the authority of their superiors ; although
the presence and concurrence of those superiors could
give no authority to such monstrous democratic
assemblies [cornices].'

It is not necessary to add much to this finished
picture ; finished as far as its canvas admits ; but as
I apprehend, not taking in the whole of the nature and
complexity of the disorders of this military democracy,
which, the minister at war truly and wisely observes,
wherever it exists, must be the true constitution of
the state, by whatever formal appellation it may pass.
For, though he informs the assembly that the more
considerable part of the army have not cast off their
obedience but are still attached to their duty, yet
those travellers, who have seen the corps whose conduct
is the best, rather observe in them the absence of mutiny
than the existence of discipline.

I cannot help pausing here for a moment, to reflect
upon the expressions of surprise which this minister has
let fall relative to the excesses he relates. To him the
departure of the troops from their ancient principles
of loyalty and honour seems quite inconceivable.
Surely those to whom he addresses himself know the
causes of it but too well. They know the doctrines
which they have preached, the decrees which they have
passed, the practices which they have countenanced.
The soldiers remember the 6th of October. They
recollect the French guards. They have not forgotten
the taking of the king's castles in Paris and at Mar-
seilles. That the governors in both places were mur-
dered with impunity, is a fact that has not passed out
of their minds. They do not abandon the principles
laid down so ostentatiously and laboriously of the
equality of men. They cannot shut their eyes to
the degradation of the whole noblesse of France, and
the suppression of the very idea of a gentleman. The
total abolition of titles and distinctions is not lost

236 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

upon them. But M. du Pin is astonished at their
disloyalty, when the doctors of the assembly have
taught them at the same time the respect due to laws.
It is easy to judge which of the two sorts of lessons
men with arms in their hands are likely to learn. As
to the authority of the king, we may collect from the
minister himself (if any argument on that head were
not quite superfluous) that it is not of more considera-
tion with these troops than it is with everybody else.
' The king,' says he, ' has over and over again repeated
his orders to put a stop to these excesses : but in so
terrible a crisis, your [the assembly's] concurrence ia
become indispensably necessary to prevent the evils
which menace the state. You unite to the forces of
the legislative power, that of opinion still more impor-
tant.' To be sure the army can have no opinion of
the power or authority of the king. Perhaps the
soldier has by this time learned, that the assembly itself
does not enjoy a much greater degree of liberty than
that royal figure.

It is now to be seen what has been proposed in this
exigency, one of the greatest that can happen in a state.
The minister requests the assembly to array itself in
all its terrors, and to call forth all its majesty. He
desires that the grave and severe principles announced
by them may give vigour to the king's proclamation.
After this we should have looked for courts civil and
martial ; breaking of some corps, decimating of others.
and all the terrible means which necessity has employed
in such cases to arrest the progress of the most terrible
of all evils ; particularly, one might expect, that a
serious inquiry would be made into the murder of
commandants in the view of their soldiers. Not one
word of all this, or of anything Jike it. After they had
been told that the soldiery trampled upon the decrees
of the assembly promulgated by the king, the assembly
pass new decrees ; and they authorize the king to make
new proclamations. After the secretary-at-war had
stated that the regiments had paid no regard to oaths
pretes avec la plus imposante solemnite — they propose —

WANT OF DISCIPLINE 237

what ? More oaths. They renew decrees and procla-
mations as they experience their insufficiency, and they
multiply oaths in proportion as they weaken, in the
minds of men, the sanctions of religion. I hope that
handy abridgments of the excellent sermons of Voltaire,
d'Alembert, Diderot, and Helvetius, on the Immortality
of the Soul, on a particular superintending Providence,
and on a Future State of Rewards and Punishments,
are sent down to the soldiers along with their civic oaths.
Of this I have no doubt ; as I understand that a certain
description of reading makes no inconsiderable part of
their military exercises, and that they are full as well
supplied with the ammunition of pamphlets as of car-
tridges.

To prevent the mischiefs arising from conspiracies,
irregular consultations, seditious committees, and
monstrous democratic assemblies [' comitia, cornices ']
of the soldiers, and all the disorders arising from
idleness, luxury, dissipation, and insubordination, I
believe the most astonishing means have been used
that ever occurred to men, even in all the inventions of
this prolific age. It is no less than this : — The king has
promulgated in circular letters to all the regiments his
direct authority and encouragement, that the several
corps should join themselves with the clubs and con-
federations in the several municipalities, and mix with
them in their feasts and civic entertainments ! This
jolly discipline, it seems, is to soften the ferocity of
their minds ; to reconcile them to their bottle com-
panions of other descriptions ; and to merge particular
conspiracies in more general associations l. That this

1 Comme sa majeste y a reconnu, non une systeme
d'associations partioulieres, inais une reunion de volontes
de tous les Francois pour la liberte et la prosperite com-
munes, ainsi pour la maintien de 1'ordre publique ; il
a pense qu'il convenoit que chaque regiment prit part
a ces fetes civiques pour multiplier les rapports, et referrer
les liens d'union entre les citoyens et les troupes. — Lest
I should not be credited, I insert the words, authorizing
the troops to feast with the popular confederacies.

238 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

remedy would be pleasing to the soldiers, as they are
described by M. de la Tour du Pin, I can readily believe ;
and that, however mutinous otherwise, they will duti-
fully submit themselves to these, royal proclamations.
But I should question whether all this civic swearing,
clubbing, and feasting, would dispose them more than
at present they are disposed to an obedience to their
officers ; or teach them better to submit to the austere
rules of military discipline. It will make them admir-
able citizens after the French mode, but not quite so
good soldiers after any mode. A doubt might well
arise, whether the conversations at these good tables
would fit them a great deal the better for the character
of mere instruments, which this veteran officer and
statesman justly observes the nature of things always
requires an army to be.

Concerning the likelihood of this improvement in
discipline, by the free conversation of the soldiers with
the municipal festive societies, which is thus officially
encouraged by royal authority and sanction, we may
judge by the state of the municipalities themselves,
furnished to us by the war minister in this very speech.
He conceives good hopes of the success of his endeavours
towards restoring order for the present from the good
disposition of certain regiments ; but he finds some-
thing cloudy with regard to the future. As to prevent-
ing the return of confusion, ' for this, the administration
(says he) cannot be answerable to you, as long as they
see the municipalities arrogate to themselves an autho-
rity over the troops, which your institutions have
reserved wholly to the monarch. You have fixed the
limits of the military authority and the municipal
authority. You have bounded the action which you
have permitted to the latter over the former, to the
right of requisition ; but never did the letter or the
spirit of your decrees authorize the commons in these
municipalities to break the officers, to try them, to give
orders to the soldiers, to drive them from the posts
committed to their guard, to stop them in their marches
ordered by the king, or, in a word, to enslave the troops

THE NAVY 239

to the caprice of each of the cities, or even market towns,
through which they are to pass.'

Such is the character and disposition of the municipal
society which is to reclaim the soldiery, to bring them
back to the true principles of military subordination,
and to render them machines in the hands of the
supreme power of the country ! Such are the distempers
of the French troops ! Such is their cure ! As the army
is, so is the navy. The municipalities supersede the
orders of the assembly, and the seamen in their turn
supersede the orders of the municipalities. From my
heart I pity the condition of a respectable servant
of the public, like this war minister, obliged in his old
age to pledge the assembly in their civic cups, and to
enter with a hoary head into all the fantastic vagaries
of these juvenile politicians. Such schemes are not like
propositions coming from a man of fifty years' wear
and tear amongst mankind. They seem rather such
as ought to be expected from those grand compounders
in politics who shorten the road to their degrees in the
state ; and have a certain inward fanatical assurance
and illumination upon all subjects ; upon the credit
of which one of their doctors has thought fit, with great
applause, and greater success, to caution the assembly
not to attend to old men, or to any persons who valued
themselves upon their experience. I suppose all the
ministers of state must qualify, and take this test ;
wholly abjuring the errors and heresies of experience
and observation. Every man has his own relish. But
I think if I could not attain to the wisdom, I would at
least preserve something of the stiff and peremptory
dignity of age. These gentlemen deal in regeneration :
but at any price I should hardly yield my rigid fibres
to be regenerated by them ; nor begin, in my grand
climacteric, to squall in their new accents, or to stammer
in my second cradle, the elemental sounds of their
barbarous metaphysics '. Si isti mihi largiantur ut
repuerascam, et in eorum cunis vagiam, valde recusem !

1 The war minister has since quitted the school, and
resigned his office.

240 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

The imbecility of any part of the puerile and pedan-
tic system, which they call a constitution, cannot be
laid open without discovering the utter insufficiency and
mischief of every other part with which it comes in
contact, or that bears any the remotest relation to it.
You cannot propose a remedy for the incompetence of
the crown, without displaying the debility of the
assembly. You cannot deliberate on the confusion of
the army of the state, without disclosing the worse
disorders of the armed municipalities. The military
lays open the civil, and the civil betrays the military
anarchy. I wish everybody carefully to peruse the
eloquent speech (such it is) of Mons. de la Tour du Pin.
He attributes the salvation of the municipalities to the
good behaviour of some of the troops. These troops
are to preserve the well-disposed part of the munici-
palities, which is confessed to be the weakest, from the
pillage of the worst disposed, which is the strongest.
But the municipalities affect a sovereignty, and will
command those troops which are necessary for their
protection. Indeed they must command them or
court them. The municipalities, by the necessity of
their situation, and by the republican powers they
have obtained, must, with relation to the military, be
the masters, or the servants, or the confederates, or
each successively ; or they must make a jumble of all
together, according to circumstances. What govern-
ment is there to coerce the army, but the municipality
or the municipality but the army ? To preserve concord
where authority is extinguished, at the hazard of all
consequences, the assembly attempts to cure the dis-
tempers by the distempers themselves ; and they hope
to preserve themselves from a purely military democracy
by giving it a debauched interest in the municipal.

If the soldiers once come to mix for any time in the
municipal clubs, cabals, and confederacies, an elective
attraction will draw them to the lowest and most
desperate part. With them will be their habits, affec-
tions, and sympathies. The military conspiracies,
which are to b«3 remedied by civic confederacies ; the

APPOINTMENT OF OFFICERS 241

rebellious municipalities, which are to be rendered
obedient by furnishing them with the means of seducing
the very armies of the state that are to keep them in
order ; all these chimeras of a monstrous and portentous
policy must aggravate the confusion from which they
have arisen. There must be blood. The want of
common judgment manifested in the construction of all
their descriptions of forces, and in all their kinds of civil
and judicial authorities, will make it flow. Disorders
may be quieted in one time and in one part. They will
break out in others ; because the evil is radical and
intrinsic. All these schemes of mixing mutinous
soldiers with seditious citizens must weaken still more
and more the military connexion of soldiers with their
officers, as well as add military and mutinous audacity
to turbulent artificers and peasants. To secure a real
army, the officer should be first and last in the eye of
the soldier ; first and last in his attention, observance
and esteem. Officers it seems there are to be, whose
chief qualification must be temper and patience. They
are to manage their troops by electioneering arts.
They must bear themselves as candidates, not as com-
manders. But as by such means power may be
occasionally in their hands, the authority by which they
are to be nominated becomes of high importance.

What you may do finally does not appear ; nor is it
of much moment, whilst the strange and contradictory
relation between your army and all the parts of your
republic, as well as the puzzled relation of those parts
to each other and to the whole, remain as they are
You seem to have given the provisional nomination of
the officers, in the first instance, to the king, with a
reserve of approbation by the National Assembly.
Men who have an interest to pursue are extremely
sagacious in discovering the true seat of power. They
must soon perceive that those who can negative
indefinitely in reality appoint. The officers must
therefore look to their intrigues in the assembly, as the
sole, certain road to promotion. Still, however, by
your new constitution they must begin their solicitation

BURKE. IV R

242 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

at court. This double negotiation for military rank
seems to me a contrivance as well adapted, as if it were
studied for no other end, to promote faction in the
assembly itself, relative to this vast military patronage ;
and then to poison the corps of officers with factions
of a nature still more dangerous to the safety of govern-
ment upon any bottom on which it can be placed, and
destructive hi the end to the efficacy of the army itself.
Those officers, who lose the promotions intended for
them by the crown, must become of a faction opposite
to that of the assembly which has rejected their claims,
and must nourish discontents in the heart of the army
against the ruling powers. Those officers, on the other
hand, who, by carrying their point through an interest
in the assembly, feel themselves to be at best only
second in the good-will of the crown, though first in that
of the assembly, must slight an authority which would
not advance and could not retard their promotion. If
to avoid these evils you will have no other rule for com-
mand or promotion than seniority, you will have an
army of formality ; at the same time it will become
more independent and more of a military republic.
Not they, but the king is the machine. A king is not
to be deposed by halves. If he is not everything in
the command of an army, he is nothing. What is the
effect of a power placed nominally at the head of the
army, who to that army is no object of gratitude or of
fear ? Such a cipher is not fit for the administration of
an object, of all things the most delicate, the supreme
command of military men. They must be constrained
(and their inclinations lead them to what their necessities
require) by a real, vigorous, effective, decided, personal
authority. The authority of the assembly itself suffers
by passing through such a debilitating channel as they
have chosen. The army will not long look to an
assembly acting through the organ of false show, and
palpable imposition. They will not seriously yield
obedience to a prisoner. They will either despise a
pageant, or they will pity a captive king. This relation
of your army to the crown will, if I am not greatly mis-
taken, become a serious dilemma in your politics.

SOME POPULAR GENERAL! 243

It is besides to be considered, whether an assembly
like yours, even supposing that it was in possession of
another sort of organ through which its orders were to
pass, is fit for promoting the obedience and discipline
of an army. It is known that armies have hitherto
yielded a very precarious and uncertain obedience to
any senate, or popular authority ; and they will least
of all yield it to an assembly which is only to have a
continuance of two years. The officers must totally
lose the characteristic disposition of military men, if
they see with perfect submission and due admiration,
the dominion of pleaders ; especially when they find
that they have a new court to pay to an endless suc-
cession of those pleaders ; whose military policy, and
the genius of whose command (if they should have any),
must be as uncertain as their duration is transient. In
the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the
fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for
some time mutinous and full of faction, until some
popular general, who understands the art of conciliating
the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of com-
mand, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself.
Armies will obey him on his personal account. There
is no other way of securing military obedience in this
state of things. But the moment in which that event
shall happen, the person who really commands the army
is your master ; the master (that is little) of your king,
the master of your assembly, the master of "your whole
republic.

How came the assembly by their present power over
the army ? Chiefly, to be sure, by debauching the
soldiers from their officers. They have begun by
a most terrible operation. They have touched the
central point, about which the particles that compose
armies are at repose. They have destroyed the
principle of obedience in the great, essential, critical
link between the officer and the soldier, just where the
chain of military subordination commences, and on
which the whole of that system depends. The soldier
is told he is a citizen, and has the rights of man and

R2

244 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

citizen. The right of a man, he is told, is to be his own
governor, and to be ruled only by those to whom he
delegates that self-government. It is very natural he
should think that he ought most of all to have his
choice where he is to yield the greatest degree of
obedience. He will therefore, in all probability, syste-
matically do what he does at present occasionally;
that is, he will exercise at least a negative in the choice
of his officers. At present the officers are known at
at best to be only permissive, and on their good beha-
viour. In fact, there have been many instances in
which they have been cashiered by their corps. Here
is a second negative on the choice of the king ; a nega-
tive as effectual at least as the other of the assembly.
The soldiers know already that it has been a question,
not ill received in the National Assembly, whether they
ought not to have the direct choice of their officers, or
some proportion of them ? When such matters are
in deliberation it is no extravagant supposition that
they will incline to the opinion most favourable to their
pretensions. They will not bear to be deemed the army
of an imprisoned king, whilst another army in the same
country, with whom too they are to feast and con-
federate, is to be considered as the free army of a free
constitution. They will cast their eyes on the other
and more permanent army ; I mean the municipal.
That corps, they well know, does actually elect its own
officers. They may not be able to discern the grounds
of distinction on which they are not to elect a Marquis
de la Fayette (or what is his new name ?) of their own.
If this election of a commander-in-chief be a part of the
rights of men, why not of theirs ? They see elective
justices of peace, elective judges, elective curates,
elective bishops, elective municipalities, and elective
commanders of the Parisian army. — Why should they
alone be excluded ? Are the brave troops of France the
only men in that nation who are not the fit judges of
military merit, and of the qualifications necessary for
a commander-in-chief ? Are they paid by the state,
and do they therefore lose the rights of men ? They are

THE ARMY OMNIPOTENT 245

a part of that nation themselves, and contribute to that
pay. And is not the king, is not the National Assembly,
and are not all who elect the National Assembly, like-
wise paid ? Instead of seeing all these forfeit their
rights by their receiving a salary, they perceive that in
all these cases a salary is given for the exercise of those
rights. All your resolutions, all your proceedings, all
your debates, all the works of your doctors in religion
and politics, have industriously been put into their
hands ; and you expect that they will apply to their
own cause just as much of your doctrines and examples
as suits your pleasure.

Everything depends upon the army in such a govern-
ment as yours ; for you have industriously destroyed
all the opinions and prejudices, and as far as in you lay,
all the instincts which support government. Therefore
the moment any difference arises between your National
Assembly and any part of the nation, you must have
recourse to force. Nothing else is left to you ; or
rather you have left nothing else to yourselves. You
see, by the report of your war minister, that the distri-
bution of the army is in a great measure made with
a view of internal coercion J. You must rule by an army;
and you have infused into that army by which you rule,
as well as into the whole body of the nation, principles
which after a time must disable you in the use you resolve
to make of it. The king is to call out troops to act
against his people, when the world has been told, and
the assertion is still ringing in our ears, that troops
ought not to fire on citizens. The colonies assert to
themselves an independent constitution and a free
trade. They must be constrained by troops. In what
chapter of your code of the rights of men are they able
to read that it is a part of the rights of men to have
their commerce monopolized and restrained for the
benefit of others ? As the colonists rise on you, the
negroes rise on them. Troops again — massacre, tor-

1 Courrier Francois, 30th July, 1790. Assemble Natio-
nale, Numero 210.

246 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTIONS

ture, hanging ! These are your rights of men ! These
are the fruits of metaphysic declarations wantonly
made, and shamefully retracted ! It was but the other
day that the farmers of land in one of your provinces
refused to pay some sorts of rents to the lord of the soil.
In consequence of this, you decree, that the country
people shall pay all rents and dues except those which
as grievances you have abolished ; and if they refuse,
then you order the king to march troops against them.
You lay down metaphysic propositions which infer
universal consequences, and then you attempt to limit
logic by despotism. The leaders of the present system
tell them of their rights, as men, to take fortresses, to
murder guards, to seize on kings, without the least
appearance of authority even from the assembly,
whilst, as the sovereign legislative body, that assembly
was sitting in the name of the nation — and yet these
leaders presume to order out the troops which have
acted in these very disorders, to coerce those who shall
judge on the principles, and follow the examples, which
have been guaranteed by their own approbation.

The leaders teach the people to abhor and reject all
feodality as the barbarism of tyranny, and they tell
them afterwards how much of that barbarous tyranny
they are to bear with patience. As they are prodigal of
light with regard to grievances, so the people find them
sparing in the extreme with regard to redress. They
know that not only certain quit-rents and personal
duties, which you have permitted them to redeem (but
have furnished no money for the redemption), are as
nothing to those burdens for which you have made no
provision at all. They know that almost the whole
system of landed property in its origin is feudal ; that
it is the distribution of the possessions of the original
proprietors, made by a barbarous conqueror to his
barbarous instruments ; and that the most grievous
effects of the conquest are the land rents of every kind,
as without question they are.

The peasants, in all probability, are the descendants
of these ancient proprietors, Romans or Gauls. But

THE PEASANTRY 247

if they fail, in any degree, in the titles which they make
on the principles of antiquaries and lawyers, they retreat
into the citadel of the rights of men. There they
find that men are equal ; and the earth, the kind and
equal mother of all, ought not to be monopolized to
foster the pride and luxury of any men, who by nature
are no better than themselves, and who, if they do not
labour for their bread, are worse. They find that by
the laws of nature the occupant and subduer of the soil
is the true proprietor ; that there is no prescription
against nature ; and that the agreements (where any
there are) which have been made with the landlords,
during the time of slavery, are only the effect of duress
and force ; and that when the people re-entered into
the rights of men, those agreements were made as void
as everything else which had been settled under the
prevalence of the old feudal and aristocratic tyranny.
They will tell you that they see no difference between
an idler with a hat and a national cockade, and an
idler in a cowl, or in a rochet. If you ground the title
to rents on succession and prescription, they tell you
from the speech of Mr. Camus, published by the
National Assembly for their information, that things
ill begun cannot avail themselves of prescription ; that
the title of these lords was vicious in its origin ; and
that force is at least as bad as fraud. As to the title
by succession, they will tell you, that the succession of
those who have cultivated the soil is the true pedigree
of property, and not rotten parchments and silly
substitutions ; that the lords have enjoyed their usurpa-
tion too long ; and that if they allow to these lay monks
any charitable pension, they ought to be thankful to
the bounty of the true proprietor, who is so generous
towards a false claimant to his goods.

When the peasants give you back that coin of sophistic
reason, on which you have set your image and super-
scription, you cry it down as base money, and tell them
you will pay for the future with French guards and
dragoons and hussars. You hold up, to chastise them,
the second-hand authority of a king, who is only the

248 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

instrument of destroying, without any power of pro-
tecting either the people or his own person. Through
him it seems you will make yourselves obeyed. They
answer, you have taught us that there are no gentlemen ;
and which of your principles teach us to bow to kings
whom we have not elected ? We know, without your
teaching, that lands were given for the support of feudal
dignities, feudal titles, and feudal offices. When you
took down the cause as a grievance, why should the
more grievous effect remain ? As there are now no
hereditary honours, and no distinguished families, why
are we taxed to maintain what you tell us ought not to
exist ? You have sent down our old aristocratic land-
lords in no other character, and with no other title but
that of exactors under your authority. Have you
endeavoured to make these your rent-gatherers
respectable to us ? No. You have sent them to us
with their arms reversed, their shields broken, their
impresses defaced ; and so displumed, degraded, and
metamorphosed, such unfeathered two-legged things,
that we no longer know them. They are strangers to
us. They do not even go by the names of our ancient
lords. Physically they may be the same men ; though
we are not quite sure of that, on your new philosophic
doctrine of personal identity. In all other respects they
are totally changed. We do not see why we have not
as good a right to refuse them their rents, as you have
to abrogate all their honours, titles, and distinctions.
This we have never commissioned you to do ; and it
is one instance among many, indeed, of your assump-
tion of undelegated power. We see the burghers of
Paris, through their clubs, their mobs, and their national
guards, directing you at their pleasure, and giving that
as law to you, which, under your authority, is trans-
mitted as law to us. Through you, these burghers
dispose of the lives and fortunes of us all. Why should
not you attend as much to the desires of the laborious
husbandman with regard to our rent, by which we are
affected in the most serious manner, as you do to the
demands of these insolent burghers, relative to distinc-

ARBITRARY PLEASURE 249

tions and titles of honour, by which neither they nor we
are affected at all ? But we find you pay more regard
to their fancies than to our necessities. Is it among
the rights of man to pay tribute to his equals ? Before
this measure of yours we might have thought we were
not perfectly equal. We might have entertained some
old, habitual, unmeaning prepossession in favour of
those landlords ; but we cannot conceive with what
other view than that of destroying all respect to them,
you could have made the law that degrades them.
You have forbidden us to treat them with any of the
old formalities of respect, and now you send troops to
sabre and to bayonet us into a submission to fear and
force, which you did not suffer us to yield to the mild
authority of opinion.

The ground of some of these arguments is horrid and
ridiculous to all rational ears ; but to the politicians of
metaphysics who have opened schools for sophistry, and
made establishments for anarchy, it is solid and con-
clusive. It is obvious that, on a mere consideration of
the right, the leaders in the assembly would not in
the least have scrupled to abrogate the rents along with
the titles and family ensigns. It would be only to
follow up the principle of their reasonings and to com-
plete the analogy of their conduct. But they had
newly possessed themselves of a great body of landed
property by confiscation. They had this commodity at
market ; and the market would have been wholly
destroyed, if they were to permit the husbandmen to
riot in the speculations with which they so freely
intoxicated themselves. The only security which pro-
perty enjoys in any one of its descriptions is from the
interests of their rapacity with regard to some other.
They have left nothing but their own arbitrary pleasure
to determine what property is to be protected and what
subverted.

Neither have they left any principle by which any of
their municipalities can be bound to obedience ; or even
conscientiously obliged not to separate from the whole
to become independent, or to connect itself with some

250 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

other state. The people of Lyons, it seems, have refused
lately to pay taxes. Why should they not ? What
lawful authority is there left to exact them ? The king
imposed some of them. The old states, methodized by
orders, settled the more ancient. They may say to the
assembly, Who are you, that are not our kings, nor the
states we have elected, nor sit on the principles on which
we have elected you ? And who are we, that when we
see the gabelles, which you have ordered to be paid,
wholly shaken off, when we see the act of disobedience
afterwards ratified by yourselves, who are we, that we
are not to judge what taxes we ought or ought not to
pay, and are not to avail ourselves of the same powers,
the validity of which you have approved in others ?
To this the answer is, We will send troops. The last
reason of kings is always the first with your assembly.
This military aid may serve for a time, whilst the im-
pression of the increase of pay remains, and the vanity
of being umpires in all disputes is nattered. But this
weapon will snap short, unfaithful to the hand that
employs it. The assembly keep a school, where, sys-
tematically, and with unremitting perseverance, they
teach principles and form regulations, destructive to
all spirit of subordination, civil and military — and then
they expect that they shall hold in obedience an
anarchic army.

The municipal army which, according to their new
policy, is to balance this national army, if considered in
itself only, is of a constitution much more simple, and in
every respect less exceptionable. It is a mere demo-
cratic body, unconnected with the crown or the king-
dom ; armed, and trained, and officered at the pleasure
of the districts to which the corps severally belong ; and
the personal service of the individuals, who compose,
or the fine in lieu of personal service, are directed by
the same authority 1. Nothing is more uniform. If,

1 1 see by Mr. Necker's account that the national guards
of Paris have received, over and above the money levied
within their own city, about 145,000^. sterling out of the

THE REVENUE SYSTEM 251

however, considered in any relation to the crown, to
the National Assembly, to the public tribunals, or to
the other army, or considered in a view to any coherence
or connexion between its parts, it seems a monster, and
can hardly fail to terminate its perplexed movements
in some great national calamity. It is a worse preser-
vative of a general constitution, than the systasis of
Crete, or the confederation of Poland, or any other ill-
devised corrective which has yet been imagined, in
the necessities produced by an ill-constructed system
of government.

Having concluded my few remarks on the constitution
of the supreme power, the executive, the judicature, the
military, and on the reciprocal relation of all these
establishments, I shall say something of the ability
showed by your legislators with regard to the revenue.

In their proceedings relative to this object, if possible,
still fewer traces appear of political judgment or financial
resource. When the states met, it seemed to be the
great object to improve the system of revenue, to enlarge
its collection, to cleanse it of oppression and vexation,
and to establish it on the most solid footing. Great
were the expectations entertained on that head through-
out Europe. It was by this grand arrangement that
France was to stand or fall ; and this became, in my
opinion, very properly, the test by which the skill and
patriotism of those who ruled in that assembly would
be tried. The revenue of the state is the state. In
effect all depends upon it, whether for support or for
reformation. The dignity of every occupation wholly
depends upon the quantity and the kind of virtue that
may be exerted in it. As all great qualities of the mind
which operate in public, and are not merely suffering
and passive, require force for their display, I had almost

public treasure. Whether this be an actual payment for
the nine months of their existence, or an estimate of their
yearly charge, I do not clearly perceive. It is of no great
importance, as certainly they may take whatever they
please.

252 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

said for their unequivocal existence, the revenue, which
is the spring of all power, becomes in its administration
the sphere of every active virtue. Public virtue, being
of a nature magnificent and splendid, instituted for
great things, and conversant about great concerns,
requires abundant scope and room, and cannot spread
and grow under confinement, and in circumstances
straitened, narrow, and sordid. Through the revenue
alone the body politic can act in its true genius and
character, and therefore it will display just as much of
its collective virtue, and as much of that virtue which
may characterize those who move it, and are, as it were,
its life and guiding principle, as it is possessed of a just
revenue. For from hence not only magnanimity, and
liberality, and beneficence, fortitude, and providence,
and the tutelary protection of all good arts, derive their
food, and the growth of their organs, but continence,
and self-denial, and labour, and vigilance, and frugality,
and whatever else there is in which the mind shows
itself above the appetite, are nowhere more in their
proper element than in the provision and distribution
of the public wealth. It is therefore not without reason
that the science of speculative and practical finance,
which must take to its aid so many auxiliary branches
of knowledge, stands high in the estimation not only of
the ordinary sort, but of the wisest and best men ; and
as this science has grown with the progress of its
object, the prosperity and improvement of nations
has generally increased with the increase of their
revenues ; and they will both continue to grow and
flourish, as long as the balance between what is left to
strengthen the efforts of individuals, and what is col-
lected for the common efforts of the state, bear to each
other a due reciprocal proportion, and are kept in a close
correspondence and communication. And perhaps it
may be owing to the greatness of revenues, and to the
urgency of state necessities, that old abuses in the
constitution of finances are discovered, and their true
nature and rational theory comes to be more perfectly
understood ; insomuch that a smaller revenue might

NO PUBLIC VIRTUE 253

have been more distressing in one period than a far
greater is found to be in another ; the proportionate
wealth even remaining the same. In this state of
things, the French assembly found something in their
revenues to preserve, to secure, and wisely to administer,
as well as to abrogate and alter. Though their proud
assumption might justify the severest test, yet in
trying their abilities on their financial proceedings,
I would only consider what is the plain, obvious duty
of a common finance minister, and try them upon that
and not upon models of ideal perfection.

The objects of a financier are, then, to secure an
ample revenue; to imposeitwith judgment andequality ;
to employ it economically ; and, when necessity obliges
him to make use of credit, to secure its foundations in
that instance, and for ever, by the clearness and
candour of his proceedings, the exactness of his calcula-
tions, and the solidity of his funds. On these heads
we may take a short and distinct view of the merits
and abilities of those in the National Assembly, who
have taken to themselves the management of this
arduous concern. Far from any increase of revenue
in their hands, I find, by a report of M. Vernier, from
the committee of finances, of the second of August
last, that the amount of the national revenue, as com-
pared with its produce before the Revolution, was
diminished by the sum of two hundred millions, or eight
millions sterling of the annual income, considerably
more than one third of the whole.

If this be the result of great ability, never surely
•was ability displayed in a more distinguished manner,
or with so powerful an effect. No common folly, no
vulgar incapacity, no ordinary official negligence, even
no official crime, no corruption, no peculation, hardly
any direct hostility which we have seen in the modern
•world, could in so short a time have made so complete
an overthrow of the finances, and with them, of the
strength of a great kingdom. — Cedo qui veslram rem-
jrublicam tantam amisistis tarn cito ?

The sophisters and declaimers, as soon as the assembly

254 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

met, began with decrying the ancient constitution of
the revenue in many of its most essential branches, such
as the public monopoly of salt. They charged it, as
truly as unwisely, with being ill-contrived, oppressive,
and partial. This representation they were not satisfied
to make use of in speeches preliminary to some plan of
reform ; they declared it in a solemn resolution or
public sentence, as it were judicially, passed upon it ;
and this they dispersed throughout the nation. At the
time they passed the decree, with the same gravity they
ordered the same absurd, oppressive, and partial tax
to be paid, until they could find a revenue to replace it.
The consequence was inevitable. The provinces which
had been always exempted from this salt monopoly,
some of whom were charged with other contributions,
perhaps equivalent, were totally disinclined to bear any
part of the burden, which by an equal distribution was
to redeem the others. As to the assembly, occupied
as it was with the declaration and violation of the rights
of men, and with their arrangements for general con-
fusion, it had neither leisure nor capacity to contrive,
nor authority to enforce, any plan of any kind relative
to the replacing the tax or equalizing it, or compensating
the provinces, or for conducting their minds to any
scheme of accommodation with the other districts which
were to be relieved.

The people of the salt provinces, impatient under
taxes, damned by the authority which had directed
their payment, very soon found their patience exhausted.
They thought themselves as skilful in demolishing as
the assembly could be. They relieved themselves by
throwing off the whole burden. Animated by this
example, each district, or part of a district, judging of
its own grievance by its own feeling, and of its remedy
by its own opinion, did as it pleased with other taxes.

We are next to see how they have conducted them-
selves in contriving equal impositions, proportioned to
the means of the citizens, and the least likely to lean
heavy on the active capital employed in the generation
of that private wealth, from whence the public fortune

PRETENDERS TO LIBERTY 255

must be derived. By suffering the several districts,
and several of the individuals in each district, to judge
of what part of the old revenue they might withhold,
instead of better principles of equality, a new inequality
was introduced of the most oppressive kind. Pay-
ments were regulated by dispositions. The parts of the
kingdom which were the most submissive, the most
orderly, or the most affectionate to the commonwealth,
bore the whole burden of the state. Nothing turns
out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble govern-
ment. To fill up all the deficiencies in the old imposi-
tions, and the new deficiencies of every kind which
were to be expected, what remained to a state without
authority ? The National Assembly called for a volun-
tary benevolence ; for a fourth part of the income of
all the citizens, to be estimated on the honour of those
who were to pay. They obtained something more
than could be rationally calculated, but what was far
indeed from answerable to their real necessities, and
much less to their fond expectations. Rational people
could have hoped for little from this their tax in the
disguise of a benevolence ; a tax weak, ineffective, and
unequal ; a tax by which luxury, avarice, and selfish-
ness were screened, and the load thrown upon pro-
ductive capital, upon integrity, generosity, and public
spirit — a tax of regulation upon virtue. At length the
mask is thrown off, and they are now trying means
(with little success) of exacting their benevolence by
force.

This benevolence, the rickety offspring of weakness,
was to be supported by another resource, the twin
brother of the same prolific imbecility. The patriotic
donations were to make good the failure of the patriotic
contribution. John Doe was to become security for
Richard Roe. By this scheme they took things of
much price from the giver, comparatively of small
value to the receiver ; they ruined several trades ; they
pillaged the crown of its ornaments, the churches of
their plate, and the people of their personal decorations.
The invention of these juvenile pretenders to liberty

256 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

was in reality nothing more than a servile imitation of
one of the poorest resources of doting despotism. They
took an old huge full-bottomed periwig out of the
wardrobe of the antiquated frippery of Louis XIV., to
cover the premature baldness of the National Assembly.
They produced this old-fashioned formal folly, though
it had been so abundantly exposed in the Memoirs of
the Duke de St. Simon, if to reasonable men it had
wanted any arguments to display its mischief and
insufficiency. A device of the same kind was tried in
my memory by Louis XV., but it answered at no time.
However, the necessities of ruinous wars were some
excuse for desperate projects. The deliberations of
calamity are rarely wise. But here was a season for
disposition and providence. It was in a time of pro-
found peace, then enjoyed for five years, and promising
a much longer continuance, that they had recourse to
this desperate trifling. They were sure to lose more
reputation by sporting, in their serious situation, with
these toys and playthings of finance, which have filled
half their journals, than could possibly be compensated
by the poor temporary supply which they afforded.
It seemed as if those who adopted such projects were
wholly ignorant of their circumstances, or wholly
unequal to their necessities. Whatever virtue may
be in these devices, it is obvious that neither the
patriotic gifts, nor the patriotic contribution, can ever
be resorted to again. The resources of public folly are
soon exhausted. The whole indeed of their scheme of
revenue is to make, by any artifice, an appearance of
a full reservoir for the hour, whilst at the same time they
cut off the springs and living fountains of perennial
supply. The account not long since furnished by
Mr. Necker was meant, without question, to be favour-
able. He gives a flattering view of the means of getting
through the year ; but he expresses, as it is natural he
should, some apprehension for that which was to suc-
ceed. On this last prognostic, instead of entering into
the grounds of this apprehension, in order, by a proper
foresight, to prevent the prognosticated evil, Mr. Necker

PAPER MONEY 257

receives a sort of friendly reprimand from the president
of the assembly.

As to their other schemes of taxation, it is impossible
to say anything of them with certainty ; because they
have not yet had their operation : but nobody is so
sanguine as to imagine they will fill up any perceptible
part of the wide gaping breach which their incapacity
has made in their revenues. At present the state of
their treasury sinks every day more and more in cash,
and swells more and more in fictitious representation.
When so little within or without is now found but paper,
the representative not of opulence but of want, the
creature not of credit but of power, they imagine that
our flourishing state in England is owing to that bank-
paper, and not the bank-paper to the flourishing condi-
tion of our commerce, to the solidity of our credit, and
to the total exclusion of all idea of power from any part
of the transaction. They forget that, in England, not
one shilling of paper-moneyof any description is received
but of choice ; that the whole has had its origin in cash
actually deposited ; and that it is convertible, at
pleasure, in an instant, and without the smallest loss,
into cash again. Our paper is of value in commerce,
because in law it is of none. It is powerful on 'Change,
because in Westminster-hall it is impotent. In pay-
ment of a debt of twenty-shillings, a creditor may refuse
all the paper of the Bank of England. Nor is there
amongst us a single public security, of any quality or
nature whatsoever, that is enforced by authority. In
fact it might be easily shown that our paper wealth,
instead of lessening the real coin, has a tendency to
increase it ; instead of being a substitute for money,
it only facilitates its entry, its exit, and its circulation ;
that it is the symbol of prosperity, and not the badge of
distress. Never was a scarcity of cash, and an exube-
rance of paper, a subject of complaint in this nation.

Well ! but a lessening of prodigal expenses and the
economy which has been introduced by the virtuous and
sapient assembly make amends for the losses sustained
in the receipt of revenue. In this at least they have

BURKE. IV 3

258 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

fulfilled the duty of a financier. — Have those who say
so looked at the expenses of the National Assembly
itself ? of the municipalities ? of the city of Paris ? of
the increased pay of the two armies ? of the new police ?
of the new judicatures ? Have they even carefully com-
pared the present pension list with the former ? These
politicians have been cruel, not economical. Com-
paring the expenses of the former prodigal government
and its relation to the then revenues with the expenses
of this new system as opposed to the state of its new
treasury, I believe the present will be found beyond all
comparison more chargeable l.

It remains only to consider the proofs of financial
ability, furnished by the present French managers when
they are to raise supplies on credit. Here I am a little
at a stand ; for credit, properly speaking, they have
none. The credit of the ancient government was not
indeed the best ; but they could always, on some terms,
command money, not only at home, but from most of
the countries of Europe where a surplus capital was
accumulated ; and the credit of that government was

1 The reader will observe that I have but lightly touched
(my plan demanded nothing more) on the condition of the
French finances, as connected with the demands upon
them. If I had intended to do otherwise, the materials
in my hands for such a task are not altogether perfect.
On this subject I refer the reader to M. de Calonne's work ;
and the tremendous display that he has made of the havoc
and devastation in the public estate, and in all the affairs
of France, caused by the presumptuous good intentions
of ignorance and incapacity. Such effects those causes
will always produce. Looking over that account with
a pretty strict eye, and, with perhaps too much rigour,
deducting everything which may be placed to the account
of a financier out of place, who might be supposed by his
enemies desirous of making the most of his cause, I believe
it will be found that a more salutary lesson of caution
against the daring spirit of innovators, than what has
been supplied at the expense of France, never was at any
time furnished to mankind.

SUPPLIES ON CREDIT 259

improving daily. The establishment of a system of
liberty would of course be supposed to give it new
strength : and so it would actually have done, if a
system of liberty had been established. What offers
has their government of pretended liberty had from
Holland, from Hamburgh, from Switzerland, from
Genoa, from England, for a dealing in their paper ?
Why should these nations of commerce and economy
enter into any pecuniary dealings with a people who
attempt to reverse the very nature of things ; amongst
whom they see the debtor prescribing, at the point of
the bayonet, the medium of his solvency to the creditor ;
discharging one of his engagements with another ;
turning his very penury into his resource ; and paying
his interest with his rags ?

Their fanatical confidence in the omnipotence of
church plunder has induced these philosophers to over-
look all care of the public estate, just as the dream of
the philosopher's stone induces dupes, under the more
plausible delusion of the hermetic art, to neglect all
rational means of improving their fortunes. With these
philosophic financiers, this universal medicine made of
church mummy is to cure all the evils of the state.
These gentlemen perhaps do not believe a great deal in
the miracles of piety ; but it cannot be questioned,
that they have an undoubting faith in the prodigies of
sacrilege. It there a debt which presses them ? — Issue
assignors. Are compensations to be made, or a main-
tenance decreed to those whom they have robbed of
their freehold in their office, or expelled from their
profession ? — Assignats. Is a fleet to be fitted out ? —
Assignats. If sixteen millions sterling of these assignats
forced on the people, leave the wants of the state as
urgent as ever — issue, says one, thirty millions sterling
of assignats — says another, issue fourscore millions more
of assignats. The only difference among their financial
factions is on the greater or the lesser quantity of
assignats to be imposed on the public sufferance. They
are all professors of assignats. Even those whose
natural good sense and knowledge of commerce, not
s 2

260 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

obliterated by philosophy, furnish decisive argu-
ments against this delusion conclude their arguments,
by proposing the emission of assignats. I suppose they
must talk of assignats, as no other language would be
understood. All experience of their inefficacy does not
in the least discourage them. Are the old assignats
depreciated at market ? What is the remedy ? Issue
new assignats. — Mais si maladia, opiniatria, non vidt
se garrire, quid illi facere ? assignare — postea assignare ;
ensuite assignare. The word is a trifle altered. The
Latin of your present doctors may be better than that of
your old comedy ; their wisdom and the variety of
their resources are the same. They have not more notes
in their song than the cuckoo ; though, far from the
softness of that harbinger of summer and plenty, their
voice is as harsh and as ominous as that of the raven.

Who but the most desperate ad venturers in philosophy
and finance could at all have thought of destroying the
settled revenue of the state, the sole security for the
public credit, in the hope of rebuilding it with the
materials of confiscated property ? If, however, an
excessive zeal for the state should have led a pious and
venerable prelate (by anticipation a father of the
church 1) to pillage his own order and, for the good of
the church and people, to take upon himself the place
of grand financier of confiscation, and comptroller-
general of sacrilege, he and his coadjutors were, in my
opinion, bound to show, by their subsequent conduct,
that they knew something of the office they assumed.
When they had resolved to appropriate to the fisc a
certain portion of the landed property of their con-
quered country, it was their business to render their
bank a real fund of credit ; as far as such a bank was
capable of becoming so.

To establish a current circulating credit upon any
land-bank, under any circumstances whatsoever, has
hitherto proved difficult at the very least. The attempt
has commonly ended in bankruptcy. But when the

1 La Bruyere of Bossuet.

A LAND-BANK 261

assembly were led, through a contempt of moral, to
a defiance of economical principles, it might at least
have been expected that nothing would be omitted on
their part to lessen this difficulty, to prevent any
aggravation of this bankruptcy. It might be expected,
that, to render your land-bank tolerable, every means
would be adopted that could display openness and
candour in the statement of the security ; everything
which could aid the recovery of the demand. To take
things in their most favourable point of view, your
condition was that of a man of a large landed estate,
which he wished to dispose of for the discharge of a
debt and the supply of certain services. Not being
able instantly to sell, you wished to mortgage. What
would a man of fair intentions, and a commonly clear
understanding, do in such circumstances ? Ought he
not first to ascertain the gross value of the estate ; the
charges of its management and disposition ; the incum-
brances perpetual and temporary of all kinds that affect
it ; then, striking a net surplus, to calculate the just
value of the security ? When that surplus (the only
security to the creditor) had been clearly ascertained
and properly vested in the hands of trustees ; then he
would indicate the parcels to be sold and the time and
conditions of sale ; after this, he would admit the public
creditor, if he chose it, to subscribe his stock into this
new fund ; or he might receive proposals for an assignat
from those who would advance money to purchase this
species of security.

This would be to proceed like men of business,
methodically and rationally ; and on the only principles
of public and private credit that have an existence. The
dealer would then know exactly what he purchased ;
and the only doubt which could hang upon his mind
would be, the dread of the resumption of the spoil, which
one day might be made (perhaps with an addition of
punishment) from the sacrilegious grip of those execrable
wretches who could become purchasers at the auction
of their innocent fellow-citizens.

An open and exact statement of the clear value of

262 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

the property and of the time, the circumstances,
the place of sale, were all necessary, to efface as
much as possible the stigma that has hitherto been
branded on every kind of land-bank. It became
necessary on another principle, that is, on account of
a pledge of faith previously given on that subject, that
their future fidelity in a slippery concern might be
established by their adherence to their first engagement.
When they had finally determined on a state resource
from church booty, they came, on the 14th of April,
1790, to a solemn resolution on the subject ; and
pledged themselves to their country, ' that in the
statement of the public charges for each year, there
should be brought to account a sum sufficient for
defraying the expenses of the R. C. A. religion, the
support of the ministers at the altars, the relief of the
poor, the pensions to the ecclesiastics, secular as well
as regular, of the one and of the other sex, in order that
the estates and goods which are at the disposal of the nation
may be disengaged of all charges, and employed by the
representatives, or the legislative body, to the great and
most pressing exigencies of the state.' They further
engaged, on the same day, that the sum necessary for
the year 1791 should be forthwith determined.

In this resolution they admit it their duty to show
distinctly the expense of the above objects, which, by
other resolutions, they had before engaged should be
first in the order of provision. They admit that they
ought to show the estate clear and disengaged of all
charges, and that they should show it immediately.
Have they done this immediately, or at any time ?
Have they ever furnished a rent-roll, of the immovable
estate, or given in an inventory of the movable effects
•svhich they confiscate to their assignats ? In what
manner they can fulfil their engagements of holding out
to public service ' an estate disengaged of all charges,'
without authenticating the value of the estate, or the
quantum of the charges, I leave it to their English
admirers to explain. Instantly upon this assurance,
and previously to any one step towards making it good,

THE FINANCE OF PHILOSOPHY 263

they issue, on the credit of so handsome a declaration,
sixteen millions sterling of their paper. This was
manly. Who, after this masterly stroke, can doubt of
their abilities in finance ? — But then, before any other
emission of these financial indulgences, they took care
at least to make good their original promise ! — If such
estimate, either of the value of the estate or the amount
of the incumbrances, has been made, it has escaped me.
I never heard of it.

At length they have spoken out, and they have made
a full discovery of their abominable fraud, in holding out
the church lands as a security for any debts, or any
service whatsoever. They rob only to enable them to
cheat ; but in a very short time they defeat the ends
both of the robbery and the fraud, by making out
accounts for other purposes, which blow up their whole
apparatus of force and of deception. I am obliged to
M. de Calonne for his reference to the document which
proves this extraordinary fact : it had by some means
escaped me. Indeed it was not necessary to make out
my assertion as to the breach of faith on the declaration
of the 14th of April, 1790. By a report of their com-
mittee it now appears, that the charge of keeping up the
reduced ecclesiastical establishments, and other ex-
penses attendant on religion, and maintaining the re-
ligious of both sexes, retained or pensioned, and the
other concomitant expenses of the same nature, which
they have brought upon themselves by this convulsion
in property, exceeds the income of the estates acquired
by it in the enormous sum of two millions sterling
annually ; besides a debt of seven millions and upwards.
These are the calculating powers of imposture ! This is
the finance of philosophy ! This is the result of all the
delusions held out to engage a miserable people in re-
bellion, murder, and sacrilege, and to make them prompt
and zealous instruments in the ruin of their country !
Never did a state, in any case, enrich itself by the
confiscations of the citizens. This new experiment
has succeeded like all the rest. Every honest mind,
every true lover of liberty and humanity, must rejoice

264 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

to find that injustice is not always good policy, nor
rapine the high road to riches. I subjoin with pleasure,
in a note, the able and spirited observations of M. de
Calonne on this subject l.

In order to persuade the world of the bottomless
resource of ecclesiastical confiscation, the assembly have
proceeded to other confiscation of estates in offices,
which could not be done with any common colour with-
out being compensated out of this grand confiscation
of landed property. They have thrown upon this fund
which was to show a surplus, disengaged of all charges,
a new charge ; namely, the compensation to the whole
body of the disbanded judicature ; and of all suppressed
offices and estates ; a charge which I cannot ascertain,
but which unquestionably amounts to many French
millions. Another of the new charges is an annuity
of four hundred and eighty thousand pounds sterling,
to be paid (if they choose to keep faith) by daily pay-
ments, for the interest of the first assignats. Have
they ever given themselves the trouble to state fairly
the expense of the management of the church lands in

1 ' Ce n'est point a 1'assemblee entiere que je m'adresse
ici ; je ne parle qu'a ceux qui 1'egarent, en lui cachant sous
des gazes seduisantes le but oil ils 1'entrainent. C'est
a eux que je dis : votre objet, vous n'en disconviendrez
pas, c'est d'oter tout espoir au clerg6, et de consommer
sa ruine ; c'est-la, en ne vous soup§onnant d'aucune com-
binaison de cupidite, d'aucun regard sur le jeu des effets
publics, c'est-la ce qu'on doit croire que vous avez en vue
dans la terrible operation que vous proposez ; c'est ce qui
doit en §tre le fruit. Mais le peuple qui vous y interessez,
quel avantage peut-il y trouver ? En vous servant sans
cesse de lui, que faites-vous pour lui ? Rien, absolument
rien , et, au contraire, vous faites ce qui ne conduit qu'a
1'accabler de nouvelles charges. Vous avez rejete, a son
prejudice, une offre de 400 millions, dont 1'acceptation
pouvoit devenir un moyen de soulagement en sa faveur ;
et a cette ressource, aussi profitable que legitime, vous avez
substitue une injustice ruineuse, qui, de votre propre aveu,
charge le tresor public, et par consequent le peuple, d'un

ENDLESS CONFISCATIONS 265

the hands of the municipalities, to whose care, skill,
and diligence, and that of their legion of unknown under-
agents, they have chosen to commit the charge of the
forfeited estates, and the consequence of which had
been so ably pointed out by the Bishop of Nancy ?

But it is unnecessary to dwell on these obvious heads
of incumbrance. Have they made out any clear state
of the grand incumbrance of all, I mean the whole of the
general and municipal establishments of all sorts, and
compared it with the regular income by revenue ?
Every deficiency in these becomes a charge on the
confiscated estate, before the creditor can plant his
cabbages on an acre of church property. There is no
other prop than this confiscation to keep the whole
state from tumbling to the ground. In this situation
they have purposely covered all that they ought indus-
triously to have cleared with a thick fog ; and then,
blindfold themselves, like bulls that shut their eyes
when they push, they drive, by the point of the bayonets,
their slaves, blindfolded indeed no worse than their
lords, to take their fictions for currencies, and to swallow
down paper pills by thirty-four millions sterling at a
dose. Then they proudly lay in their claim to a future
credit, on failure of all their past engagements, and at
a time when (if in such a matter anything can be
clear) it is clear that the surplus estates will never
answer even the first of their mortgages, I mean that of
the four hundred millions (or sixteen millons sterling)
of assignats. In all this procedure I can discern neither
the solid sense of plain dealing, nor the subtle dexterity

surcroit de depense annuelle de 50 millions au moins, ct
d'un remboursement de 150 millions.

' Malheureux peuple ! voil& ce que vous vaut en dernier
resultat 1'expropriation d'Eglise, et la durete des decrets
taxateurs du traitement des ministres d'une religion
bienf aisante ; et desormais ils seront a votre charge : leura
charites soulageoient les pauvres ; et vous allez 4tre
imposes pour subvenir &. leur entretien ! ' — De I'Etat dt la
France, p. 81. See also p. 92, and the following pages.

266 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

of ingenious fraud. The objections within the assembly
to pulling up the flood-gates for this inundation of
fraud are unanswered ; but they are thoroughly refuted
by a hundred thousand financiers in the street. These
are the numbers by which the metaphysic arithmeticians
compute. These are the grand calculations on which
a philosophical public credit is founded in France. They
cannot raise supplies ; but they can raise mobs. Let
them rejoice in the applauses of the club at Dundee, for
their wisdom and patriotism in having thus applied the
plunder of the citizens to the service of the state. I
hear of no address upon this subject from the directors
of the Bank of England ; though their approbation
would be of a little more weight in the scale of credit
than that of the club at Dundee. But, to do justice
to the club, I believe the gentlemen who compose it to
be wiser than they appear ; that they will be less liberal
of their money than of their addresses ; and that they
would not give a dog's ear of their most rumpled and
ragged Scotch paper for twenty of your fairest assignats.
Early in this year the assembly issued paper to the
amount of sixteen millions sterling : what must have
been the state into which the assembly has brought
your affairs, that the relief afforded by so vast a supply
has been hardly perceptible ? This paper also felt an
almost immediate depreciation of five per cent., which
in a little time came to about seven. The effect of these
assignats on the receipt of the revenue is remarkable.
Mr. Necker found that the collectors of the revenue,
who received in coin, paid the treasury in assignats.
The collectors made seven per cent, by thus receiving
in money and accounting in depreciated paper. It is
not very difficult to foresee that this must be inevitable.
It was, however, not the less embarrassing. Mr. Necker
was oblige! (I believe, for a considerable part, in the
market of London) to buy gold and silver for the mint,
which amounted to about twelve thousand pounds
above the value of the commodity gained. That
minister was of opinion that, whatever their secret
nutritive virtue might be, the state could not live upon

'THE MAGIC LANTERN 267

assignats alone ; that some real silver was necessary,
particularly for the satisfaction of those who, having
iron in their hands, were not likely to distinguish
themselves for patience, when they should , perceive
that whilst an increase of pay was held out to them
in real money, it was again to be fraudulently drawn
back by depreciated paper. The minister, in this very
natural distress, applied to the assembly, that they should
order the collectors to pay in specie what in specie they
had received. It could not escape him that, if the
treasury paid three per cent, for the use of a currency,
which should be returned seven per cent, worse than
the minister issued it, such a dealing could not very
greatly tend to enrich the public. The assembly took
no notice of his recommendation. They were in this
dilemma — if they continued to receive the assignats,
cash must become an alien to their treasury : if the
treasury should refuse those paper amulets, or should
discountenance them in any degree, they must destroy
the credit of their sole resource. They seem then to
have made their option ; and to have given some sort
of credit to their paper by taking it themselves ; at the
same time in their speeches they made a sort of swag-
gering declaration, something, I rather think, above
legislative competence ; that is, that there is no differ-
ence in value between metallic money and their
assignats. This was a good, stout, proof article of faith,
pronounced under an anathema, by the venerable
fathers of this philosophic synod. Credat who will —
certainly not Judceus Apetta.

A noble indignation rises in the minds of your popular
leaders, on hearing the magic lantern in their show of
finance compared to the fraudulent exhibitions of
Mr. Law. They cannot bear to hear the sands of the
Mississippi compared with the rock of the church on
which they build their system. Pray let them suppress
this glorious spirit, until they show to the world what
piece of solid ground there is for their assignats, which
they have not pre-occupied by other charges. They do
injustice to that great, mother fraud, to compare it

268 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

with their degenerate imitation. It is not true that
Law built solely on a speculation concerning the
Mississippi. He added the East India trade ; he added
the African trade ; he added the farms of all the farmed
revenue of France. All these together unquestionably
could not support the structure which the public
enthusiasm, not he, chose to build upon these bases.
But these were, however, in comparison, generous
delusions. They supposed, and they aimed at an
increase of the commerce of France. They opened to
it the whole range of the two hemispheres. They did
not think of feeding France from its own substance.
A grand imagination found in this flight of commerce
something to captivate. It was wherewithal to dazzle
the eye of an eagle. It was not made to entice the
smell of a mole ; nuzzling and burying himself in his
mother earth, as yours is. Men were not then quite
shrunk from their natural dimensions by a degrading
and sordid philosophy, and fitted for low and vulgar
deceptions. Above all, remember that, hi imposing
on the imagination, the then managers of the system
made a compliment to the freedom of men. In their
fraud there was no mixture of force. This was reserved
to our time, to quench the little glimmerings of reason
which might break in upon the solid darkness of this
enlightened age.

On recollection, I have said nothing of a scheme of
finance which may be urged in favour of the abilities of
these gentlemen, and which has been introduced with
great pomp, though not yet finally adopted in the
National Asembly. It comes with something solid in
aid of the credit of the paper circulation ; and much
has been said of its utility and its elegance. I mean
the project for coming into money the bells of the sup-
pressed churches. This is their alchymy. There are
some follies which baffle argument ; which go beyond
ridicule ; and which excite no feeling in us but disgust ;
and therefore I say no more upon it.

It is as little worth remarking any farther upon all
their drawing and re-drawing, on their circulation for

NO RELIEF TO THE PEOPLE 269

putting off the evil day, on the play between the treasury
and the Caisse (PEscompte, and on all these old, exploded
contrivances of mercantile fraud, now exalted into policy
of state. The revenue will not be trifled with. The
prattling about the rights of men will not be accepted
in payment of a biscuit or a pound of gunpowder.
Here then the metaphysicians descend from their airy
speculations and faithfully follow examples. What
examples ? The examples of bankrupts. But defeated,
baffled, disgraced, when their breath, their strength, their
inventions, their fancies desert them, their confidence
still maintains its ground. In the manifest failure of
their abilities, they take credit for their benevolence.
When the revenue disappears in their hands, they have
the presumption, in some of their late proceedings, to
value themselves on the relief given to the people. They
did not relieve the people. If they entertained such
intentions, why did they order the obnoxious taxes to
be paid ? The people relieved themselves in spite of the
assembly.

But waving all discussion on the parties who may
claim the merit of this fallacious relief, has there been,
in effect, any relief to the people in any form? Mr. Bailly,
one of the grand agents of paper circulation, lets you
into the nature of this relief. His speech to the
National Assembly contained a high and laboured
panegyric on the inhabitants of Paris, for the constancy
and unbroken resolution with which they have borne
their distress and misery. A fine picture of public
felicity ! What ! great courage and unconquerable
firmness of mind to endure benefits, and sustain redress?
One would think from the speech of this learned lord
mayor that the Parisians, for this twelvemonth past,
had been suffering the straits of some dreadful blockade ;
that Henry IV. had been stopping up the avenues to
their supply, and Sully thundering with his ordnance
at the gates of Paris ; when in reality they are besieged
by no other enemies than their own madness and folly,
their own credulity and perverseness. But Mr. Bailly
will sooner thaw the eternal ice of his atlantic regions,

270 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

than restore the central heat to Paris, whilst it remains
' smitten with the cold, dry, petrific mace ' of a false
and unfeeling philosophy. Some time after this speech,
that is, on the 13th of last August, the same magistrate,
giving an account of his government at the bar of the
same assembly, expresses himself as follows : ' In the
month of July 1789 ' [the period of everlasting com-
memoration], ' the finances of the city of Paris were yet
in good order ; the expenditure was counterbalanced
by the receipt, and she had at that time a milhon '
[forty thousand pounds sterling] ' in bank. The
expenses which she has been constrained to incur,
subsequent to the Bevolutiion, amount to 2,500,000 livres.
From these expenses, and the great falling off in the
product of the free gifts, not only a momentary, but
a toted want of money has taken place.' This is the
Paris, upon whose nourishment, in the course of the
last year, such immense sums, drawn from the vitals of
all France, have been expended. As long as Paris
stands in the place of ancient Rome, so long she will be
maintained by the subject provinces. It is an evil
inevitably attendant on the dominion of sovereign
democratic republics. As it happened in Rome, it may
survive that republican domination which gave rise to it.
In that case despotism itself must submit to the vices
of popularity. Rome, under her emperors, united the
evils of both systems ; and this unnatural combination
was one great cause of her ruin.

To tell the people that they are relieved by the
dilapidation of their public estate, is a cruel and insolent
imposition. Statesmen, before they valued themselves
on the relief given to the people by the destruction of
their revenue, ought first to have carefully attended
to the solution of this problem : — Whether it be more
advantageous to the people to pay considerably, and
to gain in proportion ; or to gain little or nothing, and
to be disburdened of all contribution ? My mind is
made up to decide in favour of the first proposition.
Experience is with me and, I believe, the best opinions
also. To keep a balance between the power of acquisi-

PREPOSTEROUS POLITICS 271

tion on the part of the subject and the demands he is
to answer on the part of the state, is the fundamental
part of the skill of a true politician. The means of
acquisition are prior in time and in arrangement. Good
order is the foundation of all good things. To be
enabled to acquire, the people, without being servile,
must be tractable and obedient. The magistrate must
have his reverence, the laws their authority. The
body of the people must not find the principles of
natural subordination by art rooted out of their minds.
They must respect that property of which they cannot
partake. They must labour to obtain what by labour
can be obtained ; and when they find, as they commonly
do, the success disproportioned to the endeavour, they
must be taught their consolation in the final proportions
of eternal justice. Of this consolation whoever deprives
them deadens their industry, and strikes at the root
of all acquisition as of all conservation. He that does
this is the cruel oppressor, the merciless enemy of the
poor and wretched ; at the same time that by his
wicked speculations he exposes the fruits of successful
industry, and the accumulations of fortune, to the
plunder of the negligent, the disappointed, and the
unprosperous.

Too many of the financiers by profession are apt to
see nothing in revenue but banks, and circulations, and
annuities on lives, and tontines, and perpetual rents,
and all the small wares of the shop. In a settled order
of the state, these things are not to be slighted, nor is
the skill in them to be held in trivial estimation. They
are good, but then only good, when they assume the
effects of that settled order, and are built upon it. But
when men think that these beggarly contrivances may
supply a resource for the evils which result from
breaking up the foundations of public order, and from
causing or suffering the principles of property to be
subverted, they will, in the ruin of their country, leave
a melancholy and lasting monument of the effect of
preposterous politics, and presumptuous, short-sighted,
narrow-minded wisdom.

272 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

The effects of the incapacity shown by the popular
leaders in all the great members of the commonwealth
are to be covered with the ' all-atoning name ' of liberty.
In some people I see great liberty indeed ; in many, if
not in the most, an oppressive, degrading servitude.
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without
virtue ? It is the greatest of all possible evils ; for it
is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
Those, who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear
to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of
their having high-sounding words in their mouths.
Grand, swelling sentiments of liberty, I am sure I do
not despise. They warm the heart ; they enlarge and
liberalize our minds ; they animate our courage in
a time of conflict. Old as I am, I read the fine raptures
of Lucan and Corneille with pleasure. Neither do
I wholly condemn the little arts and devices of popu-
larity. They facilitate the carrying of many points of
moment ; they keep the people together ; they refresh
the mind in its exertions ; and they diffuse occasional
gaiety over the severe brow of moral freedom. Every
politician ought to sacrifice to the graces ; and to join
compliance with reason. But in such an undertaking
as that in France, all these subsidiary sentiments and
artifices are of little avail. To make a government
requires no great prudence. Settle the seat of power ;
teach obedience : and the work is done. To give
freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide ;
it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free
government ; that is, to temper together these opposite
elements of liberty and restraint in one consistent work,
requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious,
powerful, and combining mind. This I do not find in
those who take the lead in the National Assembly.
Perhaps they are not so miserably deficient as they
appear. I rather believe it. It would put them below
the common level of human understanding. But
when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders
at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the con-
struction of the state, will be of no service. They will

AN AUCTION OF POPULARITY 273

become flatterers instead of legislators ; the instru-
ments, not the guides of the people. If any of them
should happen to propose a scheme of liberty, soberly
limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will
be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will pro-
duce something more splendidly popular. Suspicions
will be raised of his fidelity to his cause. Moderation
will be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards ; and com-
promise as the prudence of traitors ; until, in hopes of
preserving the credit which may enable him to temper
and moderate, on some occasions, the popular leader is
obliged to become active in propagating doctrines, and
establishing powers, that will afterwards defeat any
sober purpose at which he ultimately might have aimed.

But am I so unreasonable as to see nothing at all that
deserves commendation in the indefatigable labours of
this assembly ? I do not deny that among an infinite
number of acts of violence and folly, some good may
have been done. They who destroy everything cer-
tainly will remove some grievance. They who make
everything new, have a chance that they may establish
something beneficial. To give them credit for what
they have done in virtue of the authority they have
usurped, or to excuse them in the crimes by which that
authority has been acquired, it must appear that the
same things could not have been accomplished without
producing such a revolution. Most assuredly they
might ; because almost every one of the regulations
made by them, which is not very equivocal, was either,
in the cession of the king, voluntarily made at the
meeting of the states, or in the concurrent instructions
to the orders. Some usages have been abolished on
just grounds ; but they were such that, if they had
stood as they were to all eternity, they would little
detract from the happiness and prosperity of any state.
The improvements of the National Assembly are super-
ficial, their errors fundamental.

Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather
to recommend to our neighbours the example of the
British constitution, than to take models from them

BURKE. IV

274 REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION

for the improvement of our own. In the former they
have got an invaluable treasure. They are not, I think,
without some causes of apprehension and complaint ;
but these they do not owe to their constitution, but to
their own conduct. I think our happy situation owing
to our constitution ; but owing to the whole of it, and
not to any part singly ; owing in a great measure to
what we have left standing in our several reviews and
reformations, as well as to what we have altered or
superadded. Our people will find employment enough
for a truly patriotic, free and independent spirit, in
guarding what they possess from violation. I would
not exclude alteration neither ; but even when I
changed, it should be to preserve. I should be led to
my remedy by a great grievance. In what I did, I
should follow the example of our ancestors. I would
make the reparation as nearly as possible in the style of
the building. A politic caution, a guarded circumspec-
tion, a moral rather than a complexional timidity, were
among the ruling principles of our forefathers in their
most decided conduct. Not being illuminated with the
light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they
have got so abundant a share, they acted under a
strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of
mankind. He, that had made them thus fallible,
rewarded them for having in their conduct attended to
their nature. Let us imitate their caution, if we wish
to deserve their fortune, or to retain their bequests.
Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they
have left ; and, standing on the firm ground of the
British* constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather
than attempt to follow in their desperate flights the
aeronauts of France.

I have told you candidly my sentiments. I think
they are not likely to alter yours. I do not know that
they ought. You are young ; you cannnot guide, but
must follow the fortune of your country. But hereafter
they may be of some use to you, in some future form
which your commonwealth may take. In the present
it can hardly remain ; but before its final settlement

BURKE'S POLITIC CAUTION 275

it may be obliged to pass, as one of our poets says,
' through great varieties of untried being,' and in all
its transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood.

I have little to recommend my opinions but long
observation and much impartiality. They come from
one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of great-
ness ; and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the
tenor of his life. They come from one, almost the whole
of whose public exertion has been a struggle for the
liberty of others ; from one in whose breast no anger
durable or vehement has ever been kindled, but by
what he considered as tyranny ; and who snatches
from his share in the endeavours which are used by
good men to discredit opulent oppression, the hours he
has employed on your affairs ; and who in so doing
persuades himself he has not departed from his usual
office : they come from one who desires honours,
distinctions, and emoluments, but little; and who
expects them not at all ; who has no contempt for fame,
and no fear of obloquy ; who shuns contention, though
he will hazard an opinion : from one who wishes to
preserve consistency, but who would preserve consis-
tency by varying his means to secure the unity of his
end ; and, when the equipoise of the vessel in which he
sails may be endangered by overloading it upon one
side, is desirous of carrying the small weight of his rea-
sons to that which may preserve its equipoise.

T2

A LETTER FROM MR BURKE

TO A

MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

IN ANSWER

TO SOME OBJECTIONS TO HIS BOOK

ON

FRENCH AFFAIRS
1791

A LETTER

&c., &c.

SIB,

I HAD the honour to receive your letter of the 17th of
November last ; in which, with some exceptions, you are
pleased to consider favourably the letter I have written
on the affairs of France. I shall ever accept any mark
of approbation attended with instruction with more
pleasure than general and unqualified praises. The
latter can serve only to flatter our vanity ; the former,
whilst it encourages us to proceed, may help to improve
us in our progress.

Some of the errors you point out to me in my printed
letter are really such. One only I find to be material.
It is corrected in the edition which I take the liberty
of sending to you. As to the cavils which may be made
on some part of my remarks, with regard to the grada-
tions in your new constitution, you observe justly that
they do not affect the substance of my objections.
Whether there be a round more or less in the ladder of
representation, by which your workmen ascend from
their parochial tyranny to their federal anarchy, when
the whole scale is false, appears to me of little or no
importance.

I published my thoughts on that constitution, that
my countrymen might be enabled to estimate the
wisdom of the plans which were held out to their imita-
tion. I conceived that the true character of those plans
would be best collected from the committee appointed
to prepare them. I thought that the scheme of their
building would be better comprehended in the design
of the architects than in the execution of the masons.
It was not worth my reader's while to occupy himself

280 LETTER TO A MEMBER

with the alterations by which bungling practice corrects
absurd theory. Such an investigation would be endless :
because every day's past experience of impracticability
has driven, and every day's future experience will
drive, those men to new devices as exceptionable as
the old ; and which are no otherwise worthy of observa-
tion than as they give a daily proof of the delusion of
their promises, and the falsehood of their professions.
Had I followed all these changes, my letter would have
been only a gazette of their wanderings ; a journal of
their march from error to error, through a dry, dreary
desert, unguided by the lights of heaven, or by the
contrivance which wisdom has invented to supply their
place.

I am unalterably persuaded that the attempt to
oppress, degrade, impoverish, confiscate and extinguish
the original gentlemen and landed property of a whole
nation, cannot be justified under any form it may
assume. I am satisfied beyond a doubt that the
project of turning a great empire into a vestry, or into
a collection of vestries, and of governing it in the spirit
of a parochial administration, is senseless and absurd,
in any mode, or with any qualifications. I can never
be convinced that the scheme of placing the highest
powers of the state in churchwardens and constables,
and other such officers, guided by the prudence of liti-
gious attorneys, and Jew brokers, and set in action by
shameless women of the lowest condition, by keepers
of hotels, taverns and brothels, by pert apprentices, by
clerks, shop-boys, hair-dressers, fiddlers, and dancers
on the stage, (who, in such a commonwealth as yours,
will in future overbear, as already they have overborne,
the sober incapacity of dull, uninstructed men, of useful
but laborious occupations,) can never be put into any
shape, that must not be both disgraceful and destructive.
The whole of this project, even it it were what it pre-
tends to be, and was not, in reality, the dominion,
through that disgraceful medium, of half a dozen, or
perhaps fewer, intriguing politicians, in so mean, so
low-minded, so stupid a contrivance, in point of wisdom

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 281

as well as so perfectly detestable for its wickedness,
that I must always consider the correctives, which
might make it in any degree practicable, to be so many
new objections to it.

In that wretched state of things, some are afraid that
the authors of your miseries may be led to precipitate
their further designs, by the hints they may receive
from the very arguments used to expose the absurdity
of their system, to mark the incongruity of its parts,
and its inconsistency with their own principles ; and
that your masters may be led to render their schemes
more consistent, by rendering them more mischievous.
Excuse the liberty which your indulgence authorizes me
to take, when I observe to you, that such apprehensions
as these would prevent all exertion of our faculties in
this great cause of mankind.

A rash recourse to force is not to be justified in a state
of real weakness. Such attempts bring on disgrace ;
and, in their failure, discountenance and discourage
more rational endeavours. But reason is to be hazarded,
though it may be perverted by craft and sophistry ; for
reason can suffer no loss nor shame, nor can it impede
any useful plan of future policy. In the unavoidable
uncertainty, a£ to the effect, which attends on every
measure of human prudence, nothing seems a surer
antidote to the poison of fraud than its detection. It
is true the fraud may be swallowed after this discovery ;
and perhaps even swallowed the more greedily for
being a detected fraud. Men sometimes make a point
of honour not to be disabused ; and they had rather
fall into a hundred errors than confess one. But after
all, — when neither our principles nor our dispositions
nor, perhaps, our talents, enable us to encounter delu-
sion with delusion, we must use our best reason to those
that ought to be reasonable creatures, and to take our
chance for the event. We cannot act on these anomalies
in the minds of men. I do not conceive that the persons
who have contrived these things can be made much
the better or the worse for anything which can be said
to them. They are reason proof. Here and there, some

282 LETTER TO A MEMBER

men, who were at first carried away by wild, good in-
tentions may be led, when their first fervours are abated,
to join in a sober survey of the schemes into which they
had been deluded. To those only (and I am sorry to
say they are not likely to make a large description) we
apply with any hope. I may speak it upon an assurance
almost approaching to absolute knowledge that nothing
has been done that has not been contrived from the
beginning, even before the states had assembled.
Nulla nova mihi res inopinave surgit. They are the
same men and the same designs that they were from
the first, though varied in their appearance. It was
the very same animal that at first crawled about in the
shape of a caterpillar, that you now see rise into the air
and expand his wings to the sun.

Proceeding therefore, as we are obliged to proceed,
that is upon an hypothesis that we address rational
men, can false political principles be more effectually
exposed, than by demonstrating that they lead to
consequences directly inconsistent with, and subversive
of, the arrangements grounded upon them T If this
kind of demonstration is not permitted, the process of
reasoning called deductio ad absurdum, which even the
severity of geometry does not reject, could not be em-
ployed at all in legislative discussions. One of our
strongest weapons against folly acting with authority
would be lost.

You know, sir, that even the virtuous efforts of your
patriots to prevent the ruin of your country have had
this very turn given to them. It has been said 'here,
and in France too, that the reigning usurpers would not
have carried their tyranny to such destructive lengths,
if they had not been stimulated and provoked to it by
the acrimony of your opposition. There is a dilemma
to which every opposition to successful iniquity must,
in the nature of things, be liable. If you lie still, you
are considered as an accomplice in the measures in
which you silently acquiesce. If you resist, you are
accused of provoking irritable power to new excesses.
The conduct of a losing party never appears right : at

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 283

least it never can possess the only infallible criterion of
wisdom to vulgar judgments — success.

The indulgence of a sort of undefined hope, an
obscure confidence, that some lurking remains of
virtue, some degree of shame, might exist in the breasts
of the oppressors of France, has been among the causes
which have helped to bring on the common ruin of
king and people. There is no safety for honest men,
but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by
acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on
that belief. I well remember, at every epocha of this
wonderful history, in every scene of this tragic busi-
ness, that when your sophistic usurpers were laying
down mischievous principles, and even applying them
in direct resolutions, it was the fashion to say that they
never intended to execute those declarations in iheir
rigour. This made men careless in their opposition,
and remiss in early precaution. By holding out this
fallacious hope, the impostors deluded sometimes one
description of men, and sometimes another, so that
no means of resistance were provided against them,
when they came to execute in cruelty what they had
planned in fraud.

There are cases in which a man would be ashamed
not to have been imposed on. There is a confidence
necessary to human intercourse, and without which
men are often more injured by their own suspicions
than they would be by the perfidy of others. But
when men whom we know to be wicked impose upon
us, we are something worse than dupes* When we
know them, their fair pretences become new motives
for distrust. There is one case indeed, in which it
would be madness not to give the fullest credit to the
most deceitful of men, that is, when they make declara-
tions of hostility against us.

I find that some persons entertain other hopes, which
I confess appear more specious than those by which at
first so many were deluded and disarmed. They flatter
themselves that the extreme misery brought upon the
people by their folly will at last open the eyes of the

284 LETTER TO A MEMBER

multitude, if not of their leaders. Much the contrary,
I fear. As to the leaders in this system of imposture, —
you know that cheats and deceivers never can repent.
The fraudulent have no resource but in fraud. They
have no other goods in their magazine. They have
no virtue or wisdom in their minds, to which, in a disap-
pointment concerning the profitable effects of fraud and
cunning, they can retreat. The wearing out of an old
serves only to put them upon the invention of a new
delusion. Unluckily too, the credulity of dupes is as
inexhaustible as the invention of knaves. They never
give people possession ; but they always keep them in
hope. Your state doctors do not so much as pretend
that any good whatsoever has hitherto been derived
from their operations, or that the public has prospered
in any one instance, under their management. The
nation is sick, very sick, by their medicines. But the char-
latan tehs them that what is passed cannot be helped ;
— they have taken the draught, and they must wait its
operation with patience ; — that the first effects indeed
are unpleasant, but that the very sickness is a proof that
the dose is of no sluggish operation ; — that sickness is
inevitable in all constitutional revolutions ; — that the
body must pass through pain to ease ; — that the
prescriber is not an empiric who proceeds by vulgar
experience, but one who grounds his practice l on the
sure rules of art, which cannot possibly fail. You
have read, sir, the last manifesto, or mountebank's
bill, of the National Assembly. You see their presump-
tion in their promises is not lessened by all their
failures in the performance. Compare this last address
of the assembly and the present state of your affairs
with the early engagements of that body ; engagements
which, not content with declaring, they solemnly
deposed upon oath ; swearing lustily, that if they were
supported they would make their country glorious and

1 It is said in the last quackish address of the National
Assembly to the people of France, that they have not
formed their arrangements upon vulgar practice ; but on
a theory which cannot fail ; or something to that effect.

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 285

happy ; and then judge whether those who can write
such things, or those who can bear to read them, are of
themselves to be brought to any reasonable course of
thought or action.

As to the people at large, when once these miserable
sheep have broken the fold, and have got themselves
loose, not from the restraint, but from the protection
of all the principles of natural authority and legitimate
subordination, they become the natural prey of
impostors. When they have once tasted of the flattery
of knaves, they can no longer endure reason, which
appears to them only in the form of censure and
reproach. Great distress has never hitherto taught,
and whilst the world lasts it never will teach, wise
lessons to any part of mankind. Men are as much
blinded by the extremes of misery as by the extremes of
prosperity. Desperate situations produce desperate
councils and desperate measures. The people of
France, almost generally, have been taught to look
for other resources than those which can be derived
from order, frugality, and industry. They are generally
armed ; and they are made to expect much from the
use of arms. NihU non arrogant armis. Besides this,
the retrograde order of society has something flattering
to the dispositions of mankind. The life of adventurers,
gamesters, gipsies, beggars, and -robbers is not un-
pleasant. It requires restraint to keep men from falling
into that habit. The shifting tides of fear and hope,
the flight and the pursuit, the peril and escape, the
alternate famine and feasts of the savage and the thief,
after a time, render all course of slow, steady, progres-
sive, unvaried occupation, and the prospect only of a
limited mediocrity at the end of long labour, to the last
degree tame, languid, and insipid. Those who have
been once intoxicated with power, and have derived
any kind of emolument from it, even though but for
one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may
be distressed in the midst of all their power ; but they
will never look to anything but power for their relief.
When did distress ever oblige a prince to abdicate his

286 LETTER TO A MEMBER

authority ? And what effect will it have upon those
who are made to believe themselves a people of princes ?

The more active and stirring part of the lower orders
having got government and the distribution of plunder
into their hands, they will use its resources in each
municipality to form a body of adherents. These
rulers and their adherents will be strong enough to
overpower the discontents of those who have not been
able to assert their share of the spoil. The unfortunate
adventurers in the cheating lottery of plunder will
probably be the least sagacious, or the most inactive
and irresolute of the gang. If, on disappointment,
they should dare to stir, they will soon ye suppressed
as rebels and mutineers by their brother rebels. Scantily
fed for a while with the offal of plunder, they will drop
off by degrees ; they will be driven out of sight and out
of thought ; and they will be left to perish obscurely,
like rats, in holes and corners.

From the forced repentance of invalid mutineers and
disbanded thieves, you can hope for no resource.
Government itself, which ought to constrain the more
bold and dexterous of these robbers, is their accomplice.
Its arms, its treasures, its all are in their hands. Judica-
ture, which above all things should awe them, is their
creature and their instrument. Nothing seems to me
to render your internal situation more desperate than
this one circumstance of the state of your judicature.
Many days are not passed since we have seen a set of
men brought forth by your rulers for a most critical
function. Your rulers brought forth a set of men,
steaming from the sweat and drudgery, and all black
with the smoke and soot of the forge of confiscation and
robbery — ardentis masses fuligine lippos, a set of men
brought forth from the trade of hammering arms of
proof, offensive and defensive, in aid of the enterprises,
and for the subsequent protection of housebreakers,
murderers, traitors, and malefactors ; men, who had
their minds seasoned with theories perfectly conform-
able to then1 practice, and who had always laughed at
possession and prescription, and defied all the fiuida-

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 287

mental maxims of jurisprudence. To the horror and
stupefaction of all the honest part of this nation, and
indeed of all nations who are spectators, we have seen,
on the credit of those very practices and principles, and
to carry them further into effect, these very men placed
on the sacred seat of justice in the capital city of your
late kingdom. We see that in future you are to be
destroyed with more form and regularity. This is not
peace ; it is only the introduction of a sort of discipline
in their hostility. Their tyranny is complete in their
justice ; and their lanterne is not half so dreadful as
their court.

One would think that out of common decency they
would have given you men who had not been in the
habit of trampling upon law and justice in the assembly,
neutral men, or men apparently neutral, for judges
who are to dispose of your lives and fortunes.

Cromwell, when he attempted to legalize his power,
and to settle his conquered country in a state of order,
did not look for dispensers of justice in the instruments
of his usurpation. Quite the contrary. He sought
out, with great solicitude and selection, and even from
the party most opposite to his designs, men of weight
and decorum of character ; men unstained with the
violence of the times, and with hands not fouled with
confiscation and sacrilege : for he chose an Hale for
his chief justice, though he absolutely refused to take
his civic oaths, or to make any acknowledgment what-
soever of the legality of his government. Cromwell
told this great lawyer that since he did not approve
his title, all he required of him was to administer, in
a manner agreeable to his pure sentiments and un-
spotted character, that justice without which human
society cannot subsist : that it was not his particular
government, but civil order itself, which, as a judge,
he wished him to support. Cromwell knew how to
separate the institutions expedient to his usurpation
from the administration of the public justice of his
country. For Cromwell was a man in whom ambition
had not wholly suppressed, but only suspended the

288 LETTER TO A MEMBER

sentiments of religion, and the love (as far as it could
consist with his designs) of fair and honourable reputa-
tion. Accordingly, we are indebted to this act of his
for the preservation of our laws, which some senseless
assertors of the rights of men were then on the point of
entirely erasing, as relics of feudality and barbarism.
Besides, he gave in the appointment of that man, to that
age and to all posterity the most brilliant example of
sincere and fervent piety, exact justice, and profound
jurisprudence 1. But these are not the things in which
your philosophic usurpers choose to follow Cromwell.

One would think that after an honest and necessary
revolution (if they had a mind that theirs should pass
for such) your masters would have imitated the vir-
tuous policy of those who have been at the head of
revolutions of that glorious character. Burnet tells
us, that nothing tended to reconcile the English nation
to the government of King William so much as the care
he took to fill the vacant bishoprics with men who had
attracted the public esteem by their learning, eloquence,
and piety, and, above all, by their known moderation
in the state. With you, in your purifying revolution,
whom have you chosen to regulate the church ?
Mr. Mirabeau is a fine speaker — and a fine writer, — and
a fine — a very fine man ; but really nothing gave more
surprise to everybody here, than to find him the supreme
head of your ecclesiastical affairs. The rest is of course.
Your assembly addresses a manifesto to France, in
which they tell the people, with an insulting irony,
that they have brought the church to its primitive
condition. In one respect their declaration is un-
doubtedly true ; for they have brought it to a state of
poverty and persecution. What can be hoped for after
this ? Have not men, (if they deserve the name,) under
this new hope and head of the church, been made
bishops for no other merit than having acted as instru-
ments of atheists ; for no other merit than having
thrown the children's bread to dogs ; and, in order to

1 See Burnet's Life of Hale.

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 289

gorge the whole gang of usurers, pedlers, and itinerant
Jew-discounters at the corners of streets, starved the
poor of their Christian flocks, and their own brother
pastors ? Have not such men been made bishops to
administer in temples, in which (if the patriotic dona-
tions have not already stripped them of their vessels)
the churchwardens ought to take security for the altar
plate, and not so much as to trust the chalice in their
sacrilegious hands, so long as Jews have aesignats on
ecclesiastical plunder, to exchange for the silver stolen
from churches ?

I am told, that the very sons of such Jew- jobbers
have been made bishops ; persons not to be suspected
of any sort of Christian superstition, fit colleagues to
the holy prelate of Autun, and bred at the feet of that
Gamaliel. We know who it was that drove the money-
changers out of the temple. We see, too, who it is that
brings them in again. We have hi London very
respectable persons of the Jewish nation, whom we
will keep ; but we have of the same tribe others of a
very different description, — house-breakers, and re-
ceivers of stolen goods, and forgers of paper currency,
more than we can conveniently hang. These we can
spare to France, to fill the new episcopal thrones : men
well versed in swearing ; and who will scruple no oath
which the fertile genius of any of your reformers can
devise.

In matters so ridiculous, it is hard to be grave. On
a view of their consequences, it is almost inhuman to
treat them lightly. To what a state of savage, stupid,
servile insensibility must your people be reduced, who
can endure such proceedings in their church, their
state, and their judicature, even for a moment ! But
the deluded people of France are like other madmen,
who, to a miracle, bear hunger, and thirst, and cold, and
confinement, and the chains and lash of their keeper,
whilst all the while they support themselves by the
imagination that they are generals of armies, prophets,
kings, and emperors. As to a change of mind in these
men, who consider infamy as honour, degradation as

BURKE. IV U

290 LETTER TO A MEMBER

preferment, bondage to low tyrants as liberty, and
the practical scorn and contumely of their upstart
masters as marks of respect and homage, I look upon
it as absolutely impracticable. These madmen, to be
cured, must first, like other madmen, be subdued.
The sound part of the community, which I believe to
be large, but by no means the largest part, has been
taken by surprise, and is disjointed, terrified, and
disarmed. That sound part of the community must
first be put into a better condition, before it can do any-
thing in the way of deliberation or persuasion. This
must be an act of power, as well as of wisdom ; of
power, in the hands of firm, determined patriots, who
can distinguish the misled from traitors, who will
regulate the state (if such should be their fortune) with
a discriminating, manly, and provident mercy ; men
who are purged of the surfeit and indigestion of systems,
if ever they have been admitted into the habit of their
minds ; men who will lay the foundation of a real
reform, in effacing every vestige of that philosophy
which pretends to have made discoveries in the terra
australis of morality ; men who will fix the state upon
these bases of morals and politics, which are our old
and immemorial and, I hope, will be our eternal
possession.

This power, to such men, must come from without.
It may be given to you in pity ; for surely no nation
ever called so pathetically on the compassion of all its
neighbours. It may be given by those neighbours on
motives cf safety to themselves. Never shall I think
any country in Europe to be secure, whilst there is esta-
blished, in the very centre of it, a state (if so it may be
called) founded on principles of anarchy, and which is,
in reality, a college of armed fanatics, for the propaga-
tion of the principles of assassination, robbery, rebellion,
fraud, faction, oppression, and impiety. Mahomet,
hid, as for a time he was, in the bottom of the sands of
Arabia, had his spirit and character been discovered,
would have been an object of precaution to provident
minds. What if he had erected his fanatic standard

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 291

for the destruction of the Christian religion in luce Asios,
in the midst of the then noon-day splendour of the then
civilized world ? The princes of Europe, in the begin-
ning of this century, did well not to suffer the monarchy
of France to swallow up the others. They ought not
now, in my opinion, to suffer all the monarchies and
commonwealths to be swallowed up in the gulf of this
polluted anarchy. They may be tolerably safe at
present, because the comparative power of France for
the present is little. But times and occasions make dan-
gers. Intestine troubles may rise in other countries.
There is a power always on the wateh, qualified and dis-
posed to profit of every conjuncture, to establish its
own principles and modes of mischief, wherever it can
hope for success. What mercy would these usurpers
have on other sovereigns, and on other nations, when
they treat their own king with such unparalleled
indignities, and so cruelly oppress their own country-
men ?

The King of Prussia, in concurrence with us, nobly
interfered to save Holland from confusion. The same
power, joined with the rescued Holland and with
Great Britain, has put the emperor in the possession
of the Netherlands ; and secured, under that prince,
from all arbitrary innovation, the ancient, hereditary
constitution of those provinces. The chamber of
Wetzlar has restored the Bishop of Liege, unjustly
dispossessed by the rebellion of his subjects. The King
of Prussia was bound by no treaty, nor alliance of blood,
nor had any particular reason for thinking the emperor's
government would be more mischievous or more op-
pressive to human nature than that of the Turk : yet
on mere motives of policy that prince has interposed
with the threat of all his force, to snatch even the Turk
from the pounces of the imperial eagle. If this is done
in favour of a barbarous nation, with a barbarous neg-
lect of police, fatal to the human race, in favour of a
nation, by principle in eternal enmity with the Christian
name ; a nation which will not so much as give the
salutation of peace (Salam) to any of us ; nor make any

TT2

292 LETTER TO A MEMBER

pact with any Christian nation beyond a truce ; — if this
be done in favour of the Turk, shall it be thought either
impolitic, or unjust, or uncharitable, to employ the same
power to rescue from captivity a virtuous monarch (by
the courtesy of Europe considered as Most Christian),
who, after an intermission of one hundred and seventy-
five years, had called together the states of his kingdom
to reform abuses, to establish a free government, and
to strengthen his throne ; a monarch, who, at the very
outset, without force, even without solicitation, had
given to his people such a Magna Charta of privileges
as never was given by any king to any subjects ? — Is it
to be tamely borne by kings who love their subjects, or
by subjects who love their kings, that this monarch, in
the midst of these gracious acts, was insolently and
cruelly torn from his palace, by a gang of traitors and
assassins, and kept in close prison to this very hour,
whilst his royal name and sacred character were used
for the total ruin of those whom the laws had appointed
him to protect ?

The only offence of this unhappy monarch towards
his people was his attempt, under a monarchy, to give
them a free constitution. For this, by an example
hitherto unheard-of in the world, he has been deposed.
It might well disgrace sovereigns to take part with a
deposed tyrant. It would suppose in them a vicious
sympathy. But not to make a common cause with a
just prince, dethroned by traitors and rebels, who
proscribe, plunder, confiscate, and in every way cruelly
oppress their fellow-citizens, in my opinion is to forget
what is due to the honour and to the rights of all
virtuous and legal government.

I think the King of France to be as much an object
both of policy and compassion as the Grand Seignior
or his states. I do not conceive that the total annihi-
lation of France (if that could be effected) is a desirable
thing to Europe ; or even to this its rival nation. Pro-
vident patriots did not think it good for Rome that
even Carthage should be quite destroyed ; and he was
a wise Greek, wise for the general Grecian interests, as

OP THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 293

well as a brave Lacedemonian enemy and generous
conqueror, who did not wish, by the destruction of
Athens, to pluck out the other eye of Greece.

However, sir, what I have here said of the inter-
ference of foreign princes is only the opinion of a private
individual ; who is neither the representative of any
state, nor the organ of any party ; but who thinks him-
self bound to express his own sentiments with freedom
and energy in a crisis of such importance to the whole
human race.

I am not apprehensive that in speaking freely on the
subject of the King and Queen of France, I shall
accelerate (as you fear) the execution of traitorous
designs against them. You are of opinion, sir, that
the usurpers may, and that they will, gladly lay hold of
any pretext to throw off the very name of a king : —
assuredly I do not wish ill to your king ; but better for
him not to live (he does not reign) than to live the
passive instrument of tyranny and usurpation.

I certainly mean to show, to the best of my power,
that the existence of such an executive officer, in such
a system of republic as theirs, is absurd in the highest
degree. But in demonstrating this — to them, at least,
I can have made no discovery. They only held out the
royal name to catch those Frenchmen to whom the
name of king is still venerable. They calculate the
duration of that sentiment ; and when they find it
nearly expiring, they will not trouble themselves with
excuses for extinguishing the name, as they have the
thing. They used it as a sort of navel-string to nourish
their unnatural offspring from the bowels of royalty
itself. Now that the monster can purvey for its own
subsistence, it will only carry the mark about it, as a
token of its having torn the womb it came from.
Tyrants seldom want pretexts. Fraud is the ready
minister of injustice ; and whilst the currency of false
pretence and sophistic reasoning was expedient to their
ciesign?, they were under no necessity of drawing upon
me to furnish them with that coin. But pretexts and
sophisms have had their day, and have done their

294 LETTER TO A MEMBER

work. The usurpation no longer seeks plausibility. It
trusts to poAver.

Nothing that I can say, or that you can say, will
hasten them, by a single hour, in the execution of a
design which they have long since entertained. In
spite of their .solemn declarations, their soothing
addresses, and the multiplied oaths which they have
taken and forced others to take, they will assassinate
the king when his name will no longer be necessary to
their designs ; but not a moment sooner. They will
probably first assassinate the queen, whenever the
renewed menace of such an assassination loses its effect
upon the anxious mind of an affectionate husband. At
present, the advantage which they derive from the
daily threats against her life is her only security for
preserving it. They keep their sovereign alive for the
purpose of exhibiting him, like some wild beast at a fair ;
as if they had a Bajazet in a cage. They choose to
make monarchy contemptible by exposing it to derision
in the person of the most benevolent of their kings.

In my opinion their insolence appears more odious
even than their crimes. The horrors of the 5th and 6th
of October were less detestable than the festival of the
14th of July. There are situations (God forbid I should
think that of the 5th and 6th of October one of them)
in which the best men may be confounded with the
worst, and in the darkness and confusion, in the press
and medley of such extremities, it may not be so easy
to discriminate the one from the other. The necessities
created, even by ill designs, have their excuse. They
may be forgotten by others, when the guilty themselves
do not choose to cherish their recollection, and by
ruminating their offences, nourish themselves through
the example of their past, to the perpetration of future
crimes. It is in the relaxation of security, it is in the
expansion of prosperity, it is in the hour of dilatation
of the heart, and of its softening into festivity and plea-
sure, that the real character of men is discerned. If there
is any good in them, it appears then or never. Even
wolves and tigers, when gorged with their prey, are

OP THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 295

safe and gentle. It is at such times that noble minds
give all the reins to their good nature. They indulge
their genius even to intemperance, in kindness to the
afflicted, in generosity to the conquered ; forbearing
insults, forgiving injuries, overpaying benefits. Full
of dignity themselves, they respect dignity in all, but
they feel it sacred in the unhappy. But it is then, and
basking in the sunshine of unmerited fortune, that low,
sordid, ungenerous, and reptile souls swell with their
hoarded poisons ; it is then that they display their
odious splendour, and shine out in full lustre of their
native villany and baseness. It is in that season that
no man of sense or honour can be mistaken for one of
them. It was in such a season, for them of political
ease and security, though their people were but just
emerged from actual famine, and were ready to be
plunged into the gulf of penury and beggary, that your
philosophic lords chose, with an ostentatious pomp and
luxury, to feast an incredible number of idle and thought-
less people, collected, with art and pains, from all
quarters of the world. They constructed a vast
amphitheatre in which they raised a species of pillory 1.
On thjg pillory they set their lawful king and queen,
with an insulting figure over their heads. There they
exposed these objects of pity and respect to all good
minds to the derision of an unthinking and unprincipled
multitude, degenerated even from the versatile tender-
ness which marks the irregular and capricious feelings
of the populace. That their cruel insult might have
nothing wanting to complete it, they chose the anni-
versary of that day in which they exposed the life of
their prince to the most imminent dangers, and the vilest
indignities, just following the instant when the assassins,
whom they had hired without owning, first openly took
up arms against their king, corrupted his guards, sur-
prised his castle, butchered some of the poor invalids
of his garrison, murdered his governor, and, like wild

1 The pillory (carcan) in England is generally made very
high, like that raised for exposing the King of France.

296 LETTER TO A MEMBER

beasts, tore to pieces the chief magistrate of his capital
city, on account of his fidelity to his service.

Till the justice of the world is awakened, such as these
will go on, without admonition, and without provoca-
tion, to every extremity. Those who have made the
exhibition of the 14th of July are capable of every evil.
They do not commit crimes for their designs ; but they
form designs that they may commit crimes. It is not
their necessity, but their nature, that impels them.
They are modern philosophers ; which when you say of
them you express everything that is ignoble, savage,
and hard-hearted.

Besides the sure tokens which are given by the spirit
of their particular arrangements, there are some
characteristic lineaments in the general policy of your
tumultuous despotism, which, hi my opinion, indicate,
beyond a doubt, that no revolution whatsoever in
their disposition is to be expected. I mean their scheme
of educating the rising generation, the principles which
they intend to instil, and the sympathies which they
wish to form in the mind at the season in which it is the
most susceptible. Instead of forming their young
minds to that docility, to that modesty, which »re the
grace and charm of youth, to an admiration of famous
examples, and to an averseness to anything which
approaches to pride, petulance, and self-conceit, (dis-
tempers to which that time of life is of itself sufficiently
liable,) they artificially foment these evil dispositions,
and even form them into springs of action. Nothing
ought to be more weighed than the nature of books
recommended by public authority. So recommended,
they soon form the character of the age. Uncertain
indeed is the efficacy, limited indeed is the extent, of
a virtuous institution. But if education takes in vice
as any part of its system, there is no doubt but that it
will operate with abundant energy, and to an extent
indefinite. The magistrate, who hi favour of freedom
thinks himself obliged to suffer all sorts of publications,
is under a stricter duty than any other well to consider
what sort of writers he shall authorize, and shall

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 297

recommend by the strongest of all sanctions, that is,
by public honours and rewards. He ought to be
cautioned how he recommends authors of mixed or
ambiguous morality. He ought to be fearful of putting
into the hands of youth writers indulgent to the
peculiarities of their own complexion, lest they should
teach the humours of the professor, rather than the
principles of the science. He ought, above all, to be
cautious in recommending any writer who has carried
marks of a deranged understanding ; for where there is
no sound reason there can be no real virtue ; and mad-
ness is ever vicious and malignant.

The assembly proceeds on maxims the very reverse
of these. The assembly recommends to its youth a
study of the bold experimenters in morality. Every-
body knows that there is a great dispute amongst their
leaders, which of them is the bast resemblance of Rous-
seau. In truth, they all resemble him. His blood they
transfuse into their minds and into their manners.
Him they study ; him they meditate ; him they turn
over in all the time they can spare from the laborious
mischief of the day, or the debauchee of the night.
Rousseau is their canon of holy writ ; in his life he is
their canon of Polydetus ; he is their standard figure of
perfection. To this man and this writer, as a pattern
to authors and to Frenchmen, the foundries of Paris
are now running for statues, with the kettles of their
poor and the bells of their churches. If an author had
written like a great genius on geometry, though his prac-
tical and speculative morals were vicious in the ex-
treme, it might appear, that in voting the statue, they
honoured only the geometrician. But Rousseau is
a moralist, or he is nothing. It is impossible, therefore,
putting the circumstances together, to mistake their
design in choosing the author with whom they have
begun to recommend a course of studies.

Their great problem is to find a substitute for all the
principles which hitherto have been employed to regu-
late the human will and action. They find dispositions
in the mind of such force and quality as may fit men,

298 LETTER TO A MEMBER

far better than the old morality, for the purposes of
such a state as theirs, and may go much further in
supporting their power, and destroying their enemies.
They have therefore chosen a selfish, flattering, seduc-
tive ostentatious vice, in the place of plain duty.
True the basis of the Christian system, humility,
is the low, but deep and firm foundation of all
real virtue. But this, as very painful in the practice,
and little imposing in the appearance, they have totally
discarded. Their object is to merge all natural and all
social sentiment hi inordinate vanity. In a small degree,
and conversant in little things, vanity is of little
moment. When full grown, it is the worst of vices, and
the occasional mimic of them all. It makes the whole
man false. It leaves nothing sincere or trustworthy
about him. His best qualities are poisoned and per-
verted by it, and operate exactly as the worst. When
your lords had many writers as immoral as the object
of their statue (such as Voltaire and others) they chose
Rousseau ; because in him that peculiar vice, which
they wished to erect into ruling virtue, was by far the
most conspicuous.

We have had the great professor and founder of the
philosophy of vanity in England. As I had good oppor-
tunities of knowing his proceedings almost from day
to day, he left no doubt on my mind that he entertained
no principle either to influence his heart, or to guide his
understanding but vanity. With this vice he was pos-
sessed to a degree little short of madness. It is from
the same deranged, eccentric vanity, that this, the
insane Socrates of the National Assembly, was impelled
to publish a mad confession of his mad faults, and to
attempt a new sort of glory from bringing hardily to
light the obscure and vulgar vices, which we know may
sometimes be blended with eminent talents. He has
not observed on the nature of vanity who does not
know that it is omnivorous ; that it has no choice in
its food ; that it is fond to talk even of its own faults
and vices, as what will excite surprise and draw attention,
and what will pass at worst for openness and candour.

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 299

It was this abuse and perversion, which vanity
makes even of hypocrisy, that has driven Rousseau to
record a life not so much as chequered, or spotted here
and there, with virtues, or even distinguished by a
single good action. It is such a life he chooses to offer
to the attention of mankind. It is such a life that,
with a wild defiance, he flings in the face of his Creator,
whom he acknowledges only to brave. Your assembly,
knowing how much more powerful example is found
than precept, has chosen this man (by his own account
without a single virtue) for a model. To him they
erect their first statue. From him they commence their
series of honours and distinctions.

It is that new invented virtue, which your masters
canonize, that led their moral hero constantly to exhaust
the stores of his powerful rhetoric in the expression of
universal benevolence ; whilst his heart was incapable
of harbouring one spark of common parental affection.
Benevolence to the whole species, and want of feeling
for every individual with whom the professors come in
contact, form the character of the new philosophy.
Setting up for an unsocial independence, this their hero
of vanity refuses the just price of common labour, as
well as the tribute which opulence owes to genius, and
which, when paid, honours the giver and the receiver ;
and then he pleads his beggary as an excuse for his
crimes. He melts with tenderness for those only who
touch him by the remotest relation, and then, without
one natural pang, casts away, as a sort of offal and
excrement, the spawn of his disgustful amours, and
sends his children to the hospital of foundlings. The
bear loves, licks, and forms her young ; but bears are
not philosophers. Vanity, however, finds its account
in reversing the train of our natural feelings. Thou-
sands admire the sentimental writer ; the affectionate
father is hardly known in his parish.

Under this philosophic instructor in the ethics of
vanity, they have attempted in France a regeneration of
the moral constitution of man. Statesmen, like your
present rulers, exist by everything which is spurious,

300 LETTER TO A MEMBER

fictitious, and false ; by everything which takes the
man from his house, and sets him on a stage ; which
makes him up an artificial creature, with painted,
theatric sentiments, fit to be seen by the glare of candle-
light, and formed to be contemplated at a due distance.
Vanity is too apt to prevail in all of us, and in all coun-
tries. To the improvement of Frenchmen it seems
not absolutely necessary that it should be taught upon
system. But it is plain that the present rebellion was
its legitimate offspring, and it is piously fed by that
rebellion with a daily dole.

If the system of instruction recommended by the
assembly be false and theatric, it is because their system
of government is of the same character. To that, and
to that alone, it is strictly conformable. To understand
either, we must connect the morals with the politics
of the legislators. Your practical philosophers, sys-
tematic in everything, have wisely begun at the source.
As the relation between parents and children is the first
amongst the elements of vulgar, natural morality * ; they
erect statues to a wild, ferocious, low-minded, hard-
hearted father, of fine general feelings : a lover of his
kind, but a hater of his kindred. Your masters reject
the duties of his vulgar relation, as contrary to liberty ;
as not founded in the social compact ; and not binding
according to the rights of men ; because the relation is
not, of course, the result of free election ; never so on
the side of the children, not always on the part of the
parents.

The next relation which they regenerate by their
statues to Rousseau is that which is next in sanctity to
that of a father. They differ from those old-fashioned
thinkers, who considered pedagogues as sober and
venerable characters, and allied to the parental. The

1 Filiola tua te delectari leetor et probari tibi <pvmitriv
esse rfjv irp&s rci riieva. : etenim, si hsec non est, nulla
potest homini esse ad hominem naturae adjunctio : qua
sublata vitae societas tollitur. Valete Patron (Rousseau)
et tui condiscipuli ! (L'Assemblee Nationale.) — Cic. Ep.
ad Atticum.

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 301

moralists of the dark times, preceptorem sancti voluere
parentia esse loco. In this age of light, they teach the
people that preceptors ought to be in the place of
gallants. They systematically corrupt a very corruptible
race (for some time a growing nuisance amongst you),
a set of pert, petulant literators, to whom instead of
their proper, but severe unostentatious duties, they
assign the brilliant part of men of wit and pleasure, of
gay» young, military sparks, and danglers at toilets.
They call on the rising generation in France to take
a sympathy in the adventures and fortunes, and they
endeavour to engage their sensibility on the side of
pedagogues who betray the most awful family trusts,
and vitiate their female pupils. They teach the people
that the debauchers of virgins, almost in the arms of
their parents, may be safe inmates in their houses, and
even fit guardians of the honour of those husbands
who succeed legally to the office which the young litera-
tors had pre-occupied, without asking leave of law or
conscience.

Thus they dispose of all the family relations of
parents and children, husbands and wives. Through
this same instructor, by whom they corrupt the morals,
they corrupt the taste. Taste and elegance, though
they are reckoned only among the smaller and secondary
morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulation
of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into
virtue ; but it recommends virtue with something like
the blandishments of pleasure ; and it infinitely abates
the evils of vice. Rousseau, a writer of great force and
vivacity, is totally destitute of taste in any sense of
the word. Your masters, who are his scholars, con-
ceive that all refinement has an aristocratic character.
The last age had exhausted all its powers in giving a
grace and nobleness to our mutual appetites, and in
raising them into a higher class and order than seemed
justly to belong to them. Through Rousseau, your
masters are resolved to destroy these aristocratic
prejudices. The passion called love has so general and
powerful an influence ; it makes so much of the enter-

302 LETTER TO A MEMBER

tainment, and indeed so much the occupation of that
part of life which decides the character for ever, that
the mode and the principles on which it engages the
sympathy, and strikes the imagination, become of the
utmost importance to the morals and manners of every
society. Your rulers were well aware of this ; and in
their system of changing your manners to accommodate
them to their politics, they found nothing so convenient
as Rousseau. Through him they teach men to love after
the fashion of philosophers ; that is, they teach to men,
to Frenchmen, a love without gallantry ; a love with-
out anything of that fine flower of youthfulness and
gentility, which places it, if not among the virtues,
among the ornaments of life. Instead of this passion,
naturally allied to grace and manners, they infuse into
their youth an unfashioned, indelicate, sour, gloomy,
ferocious medley of pedantry and lewdness ; of meta-
physical speculations blended with the coarsest sensu-
ality. Such is the general morality of the passions to
be found in their famous philosopher, in his famous
work of philosophic gallantry the Nouvelle Eloise.

When the fence from the gallantry of preceptors is
broken down, and your families are no longer protected
by decent pride, and salutary domestic prejudice,
there is but one step to a frightful corruption. The
rulers in the National Assembly are in good hopes that
the females of the first families in France may become
an easy prey to dancing-masters, fiddlers, pattern-
drawers, friseurs, and valets de chambre, and other
active citizens of that description, who having the entry
into your houses, and being half domesticated by their
situation, may be blended with you by regular and
irregular relations. By a law they have made these
people their equals. By adopting the sentiments of
Rousseau they have made them your rivals. In this man-
ner these great legislators complete their pi an of levelling,
and establish their rights of men on a sure foundation.

I am certain that the writings of Rousseau lead
directly to this kind of shameful evil. I have often
wondered how he comes to be so much more admired

OP THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 303

and followed on the Continent than he is here. Perhaps
a secret charm in the language may have its share in
this extraordinary difference. We certainly perceive,
and to a degree we feel, in this writer, a style glowing,
animated, enthusiastic ; at the same time that we find
it lax, diffuse, and not in the best taste of composition ;
all the members of the piece being pretty equally
laboured and expanded, without any due selection or
subordination of parts. He is generally too much on
the stretch, and his manner has little variety. We
cannot rest upon any of his works, though they contain
observations which occasionally discover a considerable
insight into human nature. But his doctrines, on the
whole, are so inapplicable to real life and manners, that
we never dream of drawing from them any rule for
laws or conduct, or for fortifying or illustrating any-
thing by a reference to his opinions. They have with
us the fate of older paradoxes,

Cum ventum ad verum est sensus moresque repugnant,
Atque ipsa utilitas justi prope mater et eequi.

Perhaps bold speculations are more acceptable
because more new to you than to us, who have been long
since satiated with them. We continue, as in the two
last ages, to read, more generally than I believe is now
done on the Continent, the authors of sound antiquity.
These occupy our minds. They give us another taste
and turn ; and will not suffer us to be more than
transiently amused with paradoxical morality. It is
not that I consider this writer as wholly destitute of
just notions. Amongst his irregularities, it must be
reckoned that he is sometimes moral, and moral in a
very sublime strain. But the general spirit and ten-
dency of his works is mischievous ; and the more
mischievous for this mixture : for perfect depravity of
sentiment is not reconcilable with eloquence ; and the
mind (though corruptible, not complexionally vicious)
would reject, and throw off with disgust, a lesson of
pure and unmixed evil. These writers make even
virtue a pander to vice.

304 LETTER TO A MEMBER

However, I less consider the author than the system
of the assembly in perverting morality through his
means. This I confess makes me nearly despair of any
attempt upon the minds of their followers, through
reason, honour, or conscience. The great object of
your tyrants is to destroy the gentlemen of France ; and
for that purpose they destroy, to the best of their
power, all the effect of those relations which may render
considerable men powerful or even safe. To destroy
that order, they vitiate the whole community. That
no means may exist of confederating against ;their
tyranny, by the false sympathies of the Nouvdle Eloise
they endeavour to subvert those principles of domestic
trust and fidelity, which form the discipline of social
life. They propagate principles by which every servant
may think it, if not his duty, at least his privilege to
betray his master. By these principles every consider-
able father of a family loses the sanctuary of his house.
Debet sua cuique domns ease, perfugium tutissimum, says
the law, which your legislators have taken so much
pains first to decry, then to repeal. They destroy all
the tranquillity and security of domestic life ; turning
the asylum of the house into a gloomy prison, where the
father of the family must drag out a miserable existence,
endangered in proportion to the apparent means of his
safety ; where he is worse than solitary in a crowd of
domestics, and more apprehensive from his servants
and inmates, than from the hired, bloodthirsty mob
without doors, who are ready to pull him to the lanterne.

It is thus, and for the same end, that they endeavour
to destroy that tribunal of conscience which exists
independently of edicts and decrees. Your despots
govern by terror. They know that he who fears God
fears nothing else : and therefore they eradicate from
the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and
the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear
which generates true courage. Their object is, that
their fellow-citizens may be under the dominion of no
awe, but that of their committee of research, and of
their lanterne.

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 305

Having found the advantage of assassination in the
formation of their tyranny, it is the grand resource in
which they trust for the support of it. Whoever
opposes any of their proceedings, or is suspected of a
design to oppose them, is to answer it with his life, or
the fives of his wife and children. This infamous, cruel,
and cowardly practice of assassination they have the
impudence to call merciful. They boast that they
operated their usurpation rather by terror than by
force ; and that a few seasonable murders have pre-
vented the bloodshed of many battles. There is no
doubt they will extend these acts of mercy whenever
they see an occasion. Dreadful, however, will be the
consequences of their attempt to avoid the evils of war
by the merciful policy of murder. If, by effectual
punishment of the guilty, they do not wholly disavow
that practice, and the threat of it too, as any part of
their policy ; if ever a foreign prince enters into France,
he must enter it as into a country of assassins. The
mode of civilized war will not be practised ; nor are the
French who act on the present system entitled to expect
it. They, whose known policy is to assassinate every
citizen whom they suspect to be discontented by their
tyranny, and to corrupt the soldiery of every open
enemy, must look for no modified hostility. All war,
which is not battle, will be military execution. This
will beget acts of retaliation from you ; and every
retaliation will beget a new revenge. The hell-hounds
of war, on all sides, will be uncoupled and unmuzzled.
The new school of murder and barbarism, set up in
Paris, having destroyed (so far as in it lies) all the other
manners and principles which have hitherto civilized
Europe, will destroy also the mode of civilized war
which, more than anything else, has distinguished the
Christian world. Such is the approaching golden age,
which the Virgil l of your assembly has sung to his
Pollios !

In such a situation of your political, your civil, and

1 Mirabeau's speech concerning universal peace.

BURKE. IV X

306 LETTER TO A MEMBER

your social morals and manners, how can you be hurt
by the freedom of any discussion ? Caution is for those
who have something to lose. What I have said,
to justify myself in not apprehending any ill conse-
quence from a free discussion of the absurd conse-
quences which flow from the relation of the lawful
king to the usurped constitution, will apply to my
vindication with regard to the exposure I have made of
the state of the army under the same sophistic usurpa-
tion. The present tyrants want no arguments to prove,
what they must daily feel, that no good army can exist
on their principles. They are in no want of a monitor
to suggest to them the policy of getting rid of the army,
as well as of the king, whenever they are in a condition
to effect that measure. What hopes may be entertained
of your army for the restoration of your liberties, I know
not. At present, yielding obedience to the pretended
orders of a king, who, they are perfectly apprized,
has no will, and who never can issue a mandate which
is not intended, in the first operation, or in its certain
consequences, for his own destruction, your army seems
to make one of the principal links in the chain of that
servitude of anarchy, by which a cruel usurpation holds
an undone people at once in bondage and confusion.

You ask me what I think of the conduct of General
Monk. How this affects your case I cannot tell. I
doubt whether you possess, in France, any persons of
a capacity to serve the French monarchy in the same
manner in which Monk served the monarchy of England.
The army which Monk commanded had been formed
by Cromwell to a perfection of discipline which perhaps
has never been exceeded. That army was besides of
an excellent composition. The soldiers were men of
extraordinary piety after their mode, of the greatest
regularity, and even severity of manners ; brave in the
field, but modest, quiet, and orderly in their quarters ;
men who abhorred the idea of assassinating their officers
or any other persons ; and who (they at least who served
in this island) were firmly attached to those generals by
whom they were well treated and ably commanded.

OP THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 307

Such an army, once gained, might be depended on.
I doubt much, if you could now find a Monk, whether
a Monk could find in France such an army.

I certainly agree with you that in all probability we
owe our whole constitution to the restoration of the
English monarchy. The state of things from which
Monk relieved England was however by no means, at
that time, so deplorable in any sense as yours is now,
and under the present sway is likely to continue.
Cromwell had delivered England from anarchy. His
government, though military and despotic, had been
regular and orderly. Under the iron, and under the
yoke, the soil yielded its produce. After his death
the evils of anarchy were rather dreaded than felt.
Every man was yet safe in his house and in his property.
But it must be admitted that Monk freed this nation
from great and just apprehensions both of future
anarchy and of probable tyranny in some form or other.
The king whom he gave us was indeed the very reverse
of your benignant sovereign, who, in reward for his
attempt to bestow liberty on his subjects, languishes
himself in prison. The person given to us by Monk
was a man without any sense of his duty as a prince ;
without any regard to the dignity of his crown ; with-
out any love to his people ; dissolute, false, venal, and
destitute of any positive good quality whatsoever, ex-
cept a pleasant temper and the manners of a gentle-
man. Yet the restoration of our monarchy, even in the
person of such a prince, was everything to us ; for
without monarchy in England, most certainly we never
can enjoy either peace or liberty. It was under this
conviction that the very first regular step, which we
took on the Revolution of 1688, was to fill the throne
with a real king ; and even before it could be done in
due form, the chiefs of the nation did not attempt them-
selves to exercise authority so much as by interim.
They instantly requested the Prince of Orange to take
the government on himself. The throne was not
effectively vacant for an hour.

Your fundamental laws, as well as ours, suppose a
x 2

308 LETTER TO A MEMBER

monarchy. Your zeal, sir, in standing so firmly for it
as you have done, .shows not only a sacred respect for
your honour and fidelity, but a well informed attach-
ment to the real welfare and true liberties of your
country. I have expressed myself ill, if I have given
you cause to imagine that I prefer the conduct of those
who have retired from this warfare to your behaviour,
who, with a courage and constancy almost supernatural,
have struggled against tyranny, and kept the field to
the last. You see I have corrected the exceptionable
part in the edition which I now send you. Indeed, in
such terrible extremities as yours, it is not easy to say,
in a political view, what line of conduct is the most
advisable. In that state of things, I cannot bring
myself severely to condemn persons who are wholly
unable to bear so much as the sight of those men in
the throne of legislation, who are only fit to be the ob-
jects of criminal justice. If fatigue, if disgust, if unsur-
mountable nausea drive them away from such spectacles,
vbi miseriarum pars non minima erat, videre et aspic i,
I cannot blame them. He must have a heart of ada-
mant who could hear a set of traitors puffed up with
unexpected and undeserved power, obtained by an
ignoble, unmanly, and perfidious rebellion, treating
tneir honest fellow-citizens as rebels, because they
refused to bind themselves, through their conscience,
against the dictates of conscience itself, and had de-
clined to swear an active compliance with their own
ruin. How could a man of common flesh and blood
endure that those, who but the other day had skulked
unobserved in their antechambers, scornfully insulting
men, illustrious in their rank, sacred in their function.
and venerable in their character, now in decline of life,
and swimming on the wrecks of their fortunes, that
those miscreants should tell such men scornfully and
outrageously, after they had robbed them of all their
property, that it is more than enough if they are allowed
what will keep them from absolute famine, and that
for the rest, they must let their grey hairs fall over the
plough, to make out a scanty subsistence, with the

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 309

labour of their hands ! Last, and worst, who could
endure to hear this unnatural, insolent, and savage
despotism called liberty ? If, at this distance, sitting
quietly by my fire, I cannot read their decrees and
speeches without indignation, shall I condemn those
who have fled from the actual sight and hearing of all
these horrors ? No, no ! mankind has no title to demand
that we should be slaves to their guilt and insolence ; or
that we should serve them in spite of themselves.
Minds, sore with the poignant sense of insulted virtue,
filled with high disdain against the pride of triumphant
baseness, often have it not in their choice to stand their
ground. Their complexion (which might defy the
rack) cannot go through such a trial. Something very
high must fortify men to that proof. But when I am
driven to comparison, surely I cannot hestitate for
a moment to prefer to such men as are common those
heroes, who, in the midst of despair, perform all the
tasks of hope ; who subdue their feelings to their
duties ; who, in the cause of humanity, liberty, and
honour, abandon all the satisfactions of life, and every
day incur a fresh risk of life itself. Do me the justice
to believe that I never can prefer any fastidious virtue
(virtue still) to the unconquered perseverance, to the
affectionate patience of those who watch day and night,
by the bed-side of their delirious country, who, for their
love to that dear and venerable name, bear all the
disgusts, and all the buffets they receive from their
frantic mother. Sir, I do look on you as true martyrs ;
I regard you as soldiers who act far more in the spirit
of our Commander-in-chief, and the Captain of our
salvation, than those who have left you ; though
I must first bolt myself very thoroughly, and know
that I could do better, before I can censure them.
I assure you, sir, that, when I consider your unconquer-
able fidelity to your sovereign and to your country ;
the courage, fortitude, magnanimity, and long suffering
of yourself, and the Abbe Maury, and of Mr. Cazales,
and of many worthy persons of all orders, in your assem-
bly, I forget, in the lustre of these great qualities, that

310 LETTER TO A MEMBER

on your side has been displayed an eloquence so rational,
manly, and convincing, that no time or country, per-
haps, has ever excelled. But your talents disappear in
my admiration of your virtues.

As to Mr. Mounier and Mr. Lally, I have always
wished to do justice to their parts and their eloquence,
and the general purity of their motives. Indeed I saw
very well from the beginning, the mischiefs which, with
all these talents and good intentions, they would do
their country, through their confidence in systems.
But their distemper was an epidemic malady. They
were young and inexperienced ; and when will young
and inexperienced men learn caution and distrust of
themselves ? And when will men, young or old, if
suddenly raised to far higher power than that which
absolute kings and emperors commonly enjoy, learn
anything like moderation ? Monarchs, in general,
respect some settled order of things, which they find it
difficult to move from its basis, and to which they are
obliged to conform, even when there are no positive
limitations to their power. These gentlemen con-
ceived that they were chosen to new-model the state,
and even the whole order of society itself. No wonder
that they entertained dangerous visions, when the king's
ministers, trustees for the sacred deposit of the monarchy,
were so infected with the contagion of project and sys-
tem (I can hardly think it black premeditated treachery)
that they publicly advertised for plans and schemes of
government, as if they were to provide for the rebuilding
of a hospital that had been burned down. What was
this, but to unchain the fury of rash speculation amongst
a people of itself but too apt to be guided by a heated
imagination and a wild spirit of adventure ?

The fault of Mr. Mounier and Mr. Lally was very great ;
but it was very general. If those gentlemen stopped
when they came to the brink of the gulf of guilt and
public misery, that yawned before them in the abyss
of these dark and bottomless speculations, I forgive their
first error ; in that they were involved with many.
Their repentance was their own.

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 311

They who consider Mounier and Lally as deserters,
must regard themselves as murderers and as traitors ;
for from what else than murder and treason did they
desert ? For my part, I honour them for not having
carried mistake into crime. If, indeed, I thought they
were not cured by experience ; that they were not
made sensible that those who would reform a state
ought to assume some actual constitution of govern-
ment which is to be reformed ; if they are not at length
satisfied that it is become a necessary preliminary to
liberty in France, to commence by the re-establishment
of order and property of every kind, and, through the
re-establishment of their monarchy, of every one of the
old habitual distinctions and classes of the state ; if
they do not see that these classes are not to be con-
founded in order to be afterwards revived and separated;
if they are not convinced that the scheme of parochial
and club governments takes up the state at the wrong
end, and is a low and senseless contrivance (as making
the sole constitution of a supreme power), I should then
allow that their early rashness ought to be remembered
to the last moment of their lives.

You gently reprehend me, because, in holding out
the picture of your disastrous situation, I suggest no
plan for a remedy. Alas ! sir, the proposition of plans,
without an attention to circumstances, is the very
cause of all your misfortunes ; and never shall you
find me aggravating, by the infusion of any specu-
lations of mine, the evils which have arisen from
the speculations of others. Your malady, in this
respect, is a disorder of repletion. You seem to
think ithat my keeping back my poor ideas may
arise from an indifference to the welfare of a foreign,
and, sometimes, a hostile nation. No, sir, I faith-
fully assure you, my reserve is owing to no such causes.
Is this letter, swelled to a second book, a mark of
national antipathy, or even of national indifference ?
I should act altogether in the spirit of the same caution
in a similar state of our own domestic affairs. If I were
to venture any advice in any case it would be my best.

312 LETTER TO A MEMBER

The sacred duty of an adviser (one of the most inviolable
that exists) would lead me, towards a real enemy, to act
as if my best friend were the party concerned. But
I dare not risk a speculation with no better view of
your affairs than at present I can command ; my
caution is not from disregard, but from solicitude for
your welfare. It is suggested solely from my dread
of becoming the author of inconsiderate counsel.

It is not that, as this strange series of actions has
passed before my eyes, I have not indulged my mind in
a great variety of political speculations concerning
them. But compelled by no such positive duty as
does not permit me to evade an opinion : called upon
by no ruling power, without authority as I am and
without confidence, I should ill answer my own ideas
of what would become myself, or what would be ser-
viceable to others, if I were, as a volunteer, to obtrude
any project of mine upon a nation, to whose circum-
stances I could not be sure it might be applicable.

Permit me to say that, if I were as confident, as I
ought to be diffident in my own loose, general ideas, I
never should venture to broach them, if but at twenty
leagues' distance from the centre of your affairs. I must
see with my own eyes, I must, in a manner, touch with
my own hands, not only the fixed, but the momentary
circumstances, before I could venture to suggest any
political project whatsoever. I must know the power
and disposition to accept, to execute, to persevere.
I must see all the aids and all the obstacles. I must
see the means of correcting the plan, where correctives
would be wanted. I must see the things ; I must see
the men. Without a concurrence and adaptation of
these to the design, the very best speculative projects
might become not only useless but mischievous.
Plans must be made for men. We cannot think of
making men, and binding nature to our designs.
People at a distance must judge ill of men. They do
not always answer to their reputation when you ap-
proach them. Nay, the perspective varies, and shows
them quite otherwise than you thought them. At

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 313

a distance, if we judge uncertainly of men, we must
judge worse of opportunities, which continually vary
their shapes and colours, and pass away like clouds.
The eastern politicians never do anything without the
opinion of the astrologers on the fortunate moment. They
are in the right if they can do no better ; for the opinion
of fortune is something towards commanding it.
Statesmen of a more judicious prescience look for the
fortunate moment too ; but they seek it, not in the
conjunctions and oppositions of planets, but in the
conjunctions and oppositions of men and things.
These form their almanac.

To illustrate the mischief of a wise plan, without any
attention to means and circumstances, it is not neces-
sary to go farther than to your recent history. In the
condition in which France was found three years ago,
what better system could be proposed, what less,
even savouring of wild theory, what fitter to provide
for all the exigencies whilst it reformed all the abuses
of government, than the convention of the states-
general ? I think nothing better could be imagined.
But I have censured, and do still presume to censure
your parliament of Paris for not having suggested to the
king, that this proper measure was of all measures the
most critical and arduous ; one in which the utmost
circumspection and the greatest number of precautions
were the most absolutely necessary. The very confes-
sion that a government wants either amendment in its
conformation, or relief to great distress, causes it to
lose half its reputation, and as great a proportion of its
strength as depends upon that reputation. It was
therefore necessary, first to put government out of
danger, whilst at its own desire it suffered such an
operation, as a general reform at the hands of those
who were much more filled with a sense of the disease,
than provided with rational means of a cure.

It may be said that this care, and these precautions,
were more naturally the duty of the king's ministers,
than that of the parliament. They were so ; but every
man must answer in his estimation for the advice he

314 LETTER TO A MEMBER

gives, when he puts the conduct of his measure into
hands who he does not know will execute his plans
according to his ideas. Three or four ministers were
not to be trusted with the being of the French monarchy
of all the orders, and of all the distinctions, and all the
property of the kingdom. What must be the prudence
of those who could think, in the then known temper
of the people of Paris, of assembling the states at a place
situated as Versailles ?

The parliament of Paris did worse than to inspire this
blind confidence into the king. For, as if names were
things, they took no notice of (indeed they rather
countenanced) the deviations which were manifest in
the execution, from the true ancient principles of the
plan which they recommended. These deviations (as
guardians of the ancient laws, usages, and constitution
of the kingdom) the parliament of Paris ought not to
have suffered, without the strongest remonstrances to
the throne. It ought to have sounded the alarm to the
whole nation, as it had often done on things of infinitely
less importance. Under pretence of resuscitating the
ancient constitution, the parliament saw one of the
strongest acts of innovation, and the most leading in its
consequences, carried into effect before their eyes ; and
an innovation through the medium of despotism ; that
is, they suffered the king's ministers to new-model the
whole representation of the tiers etat, and, in a great
measure, that of the clergy too, and to destroy the
ancient proportions of the orders. These changes,
unquestionably, the king had no right to make ; and
here the parliaments failed in their duty, and, along
with their country, have perished by this failure.

What a number of faults have led to this multitude
of misfortunes, and almost all from this one source, —
that of considering certain general maxims, without
attending to circumstances, to times, to places, to con-
junctures, and to actors ; if we do not attend scrupu-
lously to all these, the medicine of to-day becomes the
poison of to-morrow. If any measure was in the ab-
stract better than another, it was to call the states — ea

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 315

visa saliis morientibus una. — Certainly it had the
appearance. — But see the consequences of not attending
to critical moments, of not regarding the symptoms
which discriminate diseases, and which distinguish
constitutions, complexions, and humours :

Mox erat hoc ipsum exitio ; furiisque refecti,
Ardebant ; ipsique suos, jam morte sub aegra,
Discissos nudis laniabant dentibus artus.

Thus the potion which was given to strengthen the
constitution, to heal divisions, and to compose the
minds of men, became the source of debility, frenzy,
discord, and utter dissolution.

In this, perhaps, I have answered, I think, another
of your questions — Whether the British constitution
is adapted to your circumstances ? When I praised the
British constitution, and wished it to be well studied,
I did not mean that its exterior form and positive
arrangement should become a model for you, or for
any people servilely to copy. I meant to recommend
the principles from which it has grown, and the policy
on which it has been progressively improved out of
elements common to you and to us. I am sure it is no
visionary theory of mine. It is not an advice that
subjects you to the hazard of any experiment. I believed
the ancient principles to be wise in all cases of a large
empire that would be free. I thought you possessed
our principles in your old forms, in as great a perfection
as we did originally. If your states agreed (as I think
they did) with your circumstances, they were best for
you. As you had a constitution formed upon princi-
ples similar to ours, my idea was that you might have
improved them as we have done, conforming them to
the state and exigencies of the times, and the condi-
tion of property in your country; having the con-
servation of that property, and the substantial basis
of your monarchy, as principal objects in all your
reforms.

I do not advise a House of Lords to you. Your
ancient course by representatives of the noblesse (in

316 LETTER TO A MEMBER

your circumstances) appears to me rather a better
institution. I know that, with you, a set of men of
rank have betrayed their constituents, their honour,
their trust, their king, and their country, and levelled
themselves with their footmen, that through this
degradation they might afterwards put themselves
above their natural equals. Some of these persons
have entertained a project that, in reward of this their
black perfidy and corruption, they may be chosen to
give rise to a new order, and to establish themselves
into a House of Lords. Do you think that, under the
name of a British constitution, I mean to recommend
to you such lords, made of such kind of stuff ? I do not,
however, include in this description all of those who are
fond of this scheme.

If you were now to form such a House of Peers, it woul d
bear, in my opinion, but little resemblance to ours in
its origin, character, or the purposes which it might
answer, at the same time that it would destroy your
true natural nobility ; but if you are not in a condition
to frame a House of Lords, still less are you capable, in
my opinion, of framing anything which virtually and
substantially could be answerable (for the purposes
of a stable, regular government) to our House of Com-
mons. That House is, within itself, a much more subtle
and artificial combination of parts and powers, than
people are generally aware of. What knits it to the
other members of the constitution ; what fits it to b«
at once the great support, and the great control of
government ; what makes it of such admirable service
to that monarchy which, if it limits, it secures and
strengthens, would require a long discourse, belonging
to the leisure of a contemplative man, not to one whose
duty it is to join in communicating practically to the
people the blessings of such a constitution.

Your tiers &at was not in effect and substance a
House of Commons. You stood in absolute need of
something else to supply the manifest defects in such
a body as your tiers &at. On a sober and dispassionate
view of your old constitution, as connected with all the

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 317

present circumstances, I was fully persuaded, that the
crown, standing as things have stood (and are likely to
stand, if you are to have any monarchy at all) was and
is incapable, alone and by itself, of holding a just
balance between the two orders, and at the same time
of effecting the interior and exterior purposes of a pro-
tecting government. I, whose leading principle it is, in
a reformation of the state, to make use of existing
materials, am of opinion that the representation of the
clergy, as a separate order, was an institution which
touched all the orders more nearly than any of them
touched the other ; that it was well fitted to connect
them, and to hold a place in any wise, monarchical
commonwealth. If I refer you to your original consti-
tution, and think it, as I do, substantially a good one,
I do not amuse you in this, more than in other things,
with any inventions of mine. A certain intemperance of
intellect is the disease of the time, and the source of all
its other diseases. I will keep myself as untainted by it
as I can. Your architects build without a foundation.
I would readily lend a helping hand to any superstruc-
ture, when once this is effectually secured — but first
I would say dos TTOV OTO>.

You think, sir, and you might think rightly, upon
the first view of the theory, that to provide for the exi-
gencies of an empire, so situated and so related as that
of France, its king ought to be invested with powers
very much superior to those which the King of England
possesses under the letter of our constitution. Every
degree of power necessary to the state, and not destruc-
tive to the rational and moral freedom of individuals,
to that personal liberty, and personal security, which
contribute so much to the vigour, the prosperity, the
happiness, and the dignity of a nation — every degree of
power which does not suppose the total absence of all
control, and all responsibility on the part of ministers, —
a King of France, in common sense, ought to possess.
But whether the exact measure of authority, assigned
by the letter of the law to the King of Great Britain,
can answer to the exterior or interior purposes of the

318 LETTER TO A MEMBER

French monarchy, is a point which I cannot venture
to judge upon. Here, both in the power given, and its
limitations, we have always cautiously felt our way.
The parts of our constitution have gradually, and almost
insensibly, in a long course of time, accommodated
themselves to each other, and to their common, as well
as to their separate purposes. But this adaptation of
contending parts, as it has not been in ours, so it can
never be in yours, or in any country, the effect of a
single instantaneous regulation, and no sound heads
could ever think of doing it in that manner.

I believe, sir, that many on the Continent altogether
mistake the condition of a king of Great Britain. He
is a real king and not an executive officer. If he will
not trouble himself with contemptible details, nor
wish to degrade himself by becoming a party in little
squabbles, I am far from sure that a king of Great
Britain, in whatever concerns him as a king, or indeed
as a rational man, who combines his public interest with
his personal satisfaction, does not possess a more real,
solid, extensive power, than the King of France was
possessed of before this miserable revolution. The
direct power of the King of England is considerable.
His indirect, and far more certain power, is great indeed.
He stands in need of nothing towards dignity , of
nothing towards splendour ; of nothing towards
authority ; of nothing at all towards consideration
abroad. When was it that a king of England wanted
wherewithal to make him respected, courted, or perhaps
even feared in every state of Europe ?

I am constantly of opinion that your states, in three
orders, on the footing on which they stood in 1614, were
capable of being brought into a proper and harmonious
combination with royal authority. This constitution
by estates, was the natural and only just representation
of France. It grew out of the habitual conditions,
relations, and reciprocal claims of men. It grew out
of the circumstances of the country, and out of the
state of property. The wretched scheme of your pre-
sent masters is not to fit the constitution to the people,

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 319

but wholly to destroy conditions, to dissolve relations,
to change the state of the nation, and to subvert
property, in order to fit their country to their theory of
a constitution.

Until you make out practically that great work,
a combination of opposing forces, ' a work of labour
long, and endless praise,' the utmost caution ought to
have been used in the reduction of the royal power, which
alone was capable of holding together the comparatively
heterogeneous mass of your states. But, at this day,
all these considerations are unseasonable. To what
end should we discuss the limitations of royal power ?
Your king is in prison. Why speculate on the measure
and standard of liberty ? I doubt much, very much,
indeed, whether France is at all ripe for liberty on any
standard. Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact
proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon
their own appetites ; in proportion as their love to
justice is above their rapacity ; in proportion as their
soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their
vanity and presumption ; in proportion as they are more
disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good,
in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot
exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite
be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within,
the more there must be without. It is ordained in the
eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate
minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their
fetters.

This sentence the prevalent part of your countrymen
execute on themselves. They possessed not long since,
what was next to freedom, a mild paternal monarchy.
They despised it for its weakness. They were offered
a well -poised, free constitution. It did not suit their
taste nor their temper. They carved for themselves ;
they flew out, murdered, robbed, and rebelled. They
have succeeded, and put over their country an insolent
tyranny made up of cruel and inexorable masters, and
that too of a description hitherto not known in the
world. The powers and policies by which they have

320 LETTER TO A MEMBER

succeeded are not those of great statesmen, or great
military commanders, but the practices of incendiaries,
assassins, housebreakers, robbers, spreaders of false
news, forgers of false orders from authority, and other
delinquencies, of which ordinary justice takes cogni-
zance. Accordingly the spirit of their rule is exactly
correspondent to the rceans by which they obtained
it. They act more in the manner of thieves who have
got possession of a house, than of conquerors who have
subdued a nation.

Opposed to these, in appearance, but in appearance
only, is another band, who call themselves the moderate.
These, if I conceive rightly of their conduct, are a set of
men who approve heartily of the whole new constitution,
but wish to lay heavily on the most atrocious of those
crimes, by which this fine constitution of theirs has
been obtained. They are a sort of people who affect
to proceed as if they thought that men may deceive
without fraud, rob without injustice, and overturn
everything without violence. They are men who would
usurp the government of their country with decency
and moderation. In fact, they are nothing more or
better, than men engaged in desperate designs, with
feeble minds. They are not honest ; they are only
ineffectual and unsystematic in their iniquity. Tin y
are persons who want not the dispositions, but the
energy and vigour, that is necessary for great evil
machinations. They find that in such designs they
fall at best into a secondary rank, and others take the
place and lead in usurpation, which they are not
qualified to obtain or to hold. They envy to their
companions the natural fruit of their crimes ; they join
to run them down with the hue and cry of mankind,
which pursues their common offences ; and then hopo
to mount into their places on the credit of the sobriety
with which they show themselves disposed to carry on
what may seem most plausible in the mischievous pro-
jects they pursue in common. But these men are
naturally despised by those who have heads to know,
and hearts that are able to go through the necessary

OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY 321

demands of bold wicked enterprises. They are naturally
classed below the latter description, and will only be
used by them as inferior instruments. They will
be only the Fairfaxes of your Crom wells. If they mean
honestly, why do they not strengthen the arms of honest
men, to support their ancient, legal, wise, and free
government, given to them in the spring of 1788,
against the inventions of craft, and the theories of
ignorance and folly ? If they do not, they must con-
tinue the scorn of both parties ; sometimes the tool,
sometimes the incumbrance of that whose views they
approve, whose conduct they decry. These people are
only made to be the sport of tyrants. They never can
obtain or communicate freedom.

You ask me, too, whether we have a committee of
research. No, sir, — God forbid ! It is the necessary
instrument of tyranny and usurpation ; and, there-
fore, I do not wonder that it has had an early establish-
ment under your present lords. We do not want it.

Excuse my length. I have been somewhat occupied
since I was honoured with your letter ; and I should
not have been able to answer it at all, but for the holi-
days, which have given me means of enjoying the
leisure of the country. I am called to duties which
I am neither able nor willing to evade. I must soon
return to my old conflict with the corruptions and
oppressions which have prevailed in our eastern
dominions. I must turn myself wholly from those of
France.

In England we cannot work so hard as Frenchmen.
Frequent relaxation is necessary to us. You are natu-
rally more intense in your application. I did not know
this part of your national character, until I went into
France in 1773. At present, this your disposition to
labour is rather increased than lessened. In your
assembly you do not allow yourselves a recess even on
Sundays. We have two days in the week, besides the
festivals ; and besides five or six months of the summer
and autumn. This continued, unremitted effort of the
members of your assembly, I take to be one among tho

BURKE. IV

322 LETTER &c.

causes of the mischief they have done. They who
always labour can have no true judgment. You never
give yourselves time to cool. You can never survey,
from its proper point of sight, the work you have
finished, before you decree its final execution. You
can never plan the future by the past. You never go
into the country, soberly and dispassionately to observe
the effect of your measures on their objects. You
cannot feel distinctly how far the people are rendered
better and improved, or more miserable and depraved,
by what you have done. You cannot see with your
own eyes the su'fferings and afflictions you cause. You
know them but at a distance, on the statements of
thosa who always flatter the reigning power, and who,
amidst their representations of the grievances, inflame
your minds against those who are oppressed. These
are amongst the effects of unremitted labour, when
men exhaust their attention, burn out their candles,
and are left in the dark. — Malo meorum negligentiam,
quam istorum obscurant diligentiam.

I have the honour, &c.
(Signed) EDMUND BUKKE.

Beconsfield, January 19, 1791.

THOUGHTS

ON

FRENCH AFFAIRS

ETC., ETC.

WRITTEN IN DECEMBER
1791

THOUGHTS

ON

FRENCH AFFAIRS

IN all our transactions with France, and at all periods,
•we have treated with that state on the footing of a
monarchy. Monarchy was considered in all the exter-
nal relations of that kingdom with every power in
Europe as its legal and constitutional government, and
that in which alone its federal capacity was vested.

It is not yet a year since Monsieur de Montmorin
formally, and with as little respect as can be imagined
to the king, and to all crowned heads, announced a
total revolution in that country. He has informed the
British ministry, that its frame of government is wholly
altered ; that he is one of the ministers of the new
system ; and, in effect, that the king is no longer his
master (nor does he even call him such) but the ' first
of the ministers,' in the new system.

The second notification was that of the king's accept-
ance of the new constitution ; accompanied with fan-
faronades in the modern style of the French bureaus ;
things which have much more the air and character of
the saucy declamations of their clubs, than the tone of
regular office.

It has not been very usual to notify to foreign courts
anything concerning the internal arrangements of any
state. In the present case, the circumstance of these
two notifications, with the observations with which

323 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

they are attended, does not leave it in the choice of the
sovereigns of Christendom to appear ignorant either of
this French revolution, or (what is more important) of
its principles.

VVe know that, very soon after this manifesto of
Monsieur de Montmorin, the King of France, in whose
name it was made, found himself obliged to fly, with his
whole family ; leaving behind him a declaration, in
which he disavows and annuls that constitution, as
having been the effect of force on his person and usurpa-
tion on his authority. It is equally notorious that
this unfortunate prince was, with many circumstances
of insult and outrage, brought back prisoner, by a
deputation of the pretended National Assembly, and
afterwards suspended by their authority, from his
government. Under equally notorious constraint, and
under menaces of total deposition, he has been com-
pelled to accept what they call a constitution, and to
agree to whatever else the usurped power, which holds
him in confinement, thinks proper to impose.

His next brother, who had fled with him, and his
third brother, who had fled before him, all the princes of
his blood who remained faithful to him, and the flower
of his magistracy, his clergy, and his nobility, continue
in foreign countries, protesting against all acts done by
him in his present situation, on the grounds upon which
he had himself protested against them at the time of
his flight ; with this addition, that they deny his very
competence, (as on good grounds they may,) to abrogate
the royalty, or the ancient constitutional orders of the
kingdom. In this protest they are joined by three
hundred of the late assembly itself, and, in effect, by
a great part of the French nation. The new govern-
ment (so far as the people dare to disclose their senti-
ments) is disdained, I am persuaded, by the greater
number ; who, as M. de la Fayette complains, and as
the truth is, have declined to take any share in the
new elections to the National Assembly, either as
candidates or electors.

In this state of things (that is hi the case of a divided

BRITAIN MAY INTERVENE 327

kingdom 1 by the law of nations, Great Britain, like
every other power, is free to take any part she pleases.
She may decline, with more or less formality, according
to her discretion, to acknowledge this new system ; or
she may recognize it as a government de facto, setting
aside all discussion of its original legality, and consider-
ing the ancient monarchy as at an end. The law of
nations leaves our court open to its choice. We have
no direction but what is found in the well understood
policy of the king and kingdom.

This declaration of a new species of government, on
new principles (such it professes itself to be), is a real
crisis in the politics of Europe. The conduct, which
prudence ought to dictate to Great Britain, will not
depend (as hitherto our connexion or quarrel with other
states has for some time depended) upon merely external
relations ; but in a great measure also upon the system
which we may think it right to adopt for the internal
government of our own country.

If it be our policy to assimilate our government to
that of France, we ought to prepare for this change, by
encouraging the schemes of authority established there.
We ought to wink at the captivity and deposition of
a prince, with whom, if not in close alliance, we were in
friendship. We ought to fall in with the ideas of
Mons. Montmorin's circular manifesto ; and to do
business of course with the functionaries who act under
the new power, by which that king, to whom his
majesty's minister has been sent to reside, has been
deposed and imprisoned. On that idea we ought also
to withhold all sorts of direct or indirect countenance
from those who are treating in Germany for the re-estab-
lishment of the French monarchy and of the ancient
orders of that state. This conduct is suitable to this
policy.

The question is, whether this policy be suitable to the
interests of the crown and subjects of Great Britain.
Let us, therefore, a little consider the true nature and

1 See Vattel, b. ii. c. 4. sect. 56, and b. iii. c. 18. sect. 296.

328 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

probable effects of the revolution which, in such a very
unusual manner, has been twice diplomatically an-
nounced to his majesty.

There have been many internal revolutions in the
government of countries, both as to persons and forms,
in which the neighbouring states have had little or no
concern. Whatever the government might be with
respect to those persons and those forms, the stationary
interests of the nation concerned have most commonly
influenced the new governments in the same manner in
which they influenced the old ; and the revolution,
turning on matter of local grievance, or of local accom-
modation, did not extend beyond its territory.

The present revolution in France seems to me to be
quite of another character and description ; and to bear
little resemblance or analogy to any of those which
have been brought about in Europe, upon principles
merely political. It is a revolution of doctrine and
theoretic dogma. It has a much greater resemblance to
those changes which have been made upon religious
grounds, in which a spirit of proselytism makes an
essential part.

The last revolution of doctrine and theory which
has happened in Europe is the Reformation. It is
not for my purpose to take any notice here of the merits
of that revolution, but to state one only of its effects.

That effect was to introduce other interests into all
countries than those which arose from their locality and
natural circumstances. The principle of the Reforma-
tion was such as, by its essence, could not be local or
confined to the country in which it had its origin. For
instance, the doctrine of ' justification by faith or by
works,' which was the original basis of the Reformation,
could not have one of its alternatives true as to Ger-
many, and false as to every other country. Neither are
questions of theoretic truth and falsehood governed by
circumstances any more than by places. On that
occasion, therefore, the spirit of proselytism expanded
itself with great elasticity upon all sides : and great
divisions were everywhere the result.

PRINCIPLES OF THE REFORMATION 329

These divisions, however, in appearance merely
dogmatic, soon became mixed with the political ; and
their effects were rendered much more intense from this
combination. Europe was for a long time divided into
two great factions, under the name of Catholic and
Protestant, which not only often alienated state from
state, but also divided almost every state within itself.
The warm parties in each state were more affectionately
attached to those of their own doctrinal interest in
some other country, than to their fellow-citizens, or to
their natural government, when they or either of them
happened to be of a different persuasion. These fac-
tions, wherever they prevailed, if they did not absolutely
destroy, at least weakened and distracted the locality of
patriotism. The public affections came to have other
motives and other ties.

It would be to repeat the history of the two last cen-
turies to exemplify the effects of this revolution.

Although the principles to which it gave rise did not
operate with a perfect regularity and constancy, they
never wholly ceased to operate. Few wars were made,
and few treaties were entered into, in which they did
not come in for some part. They gave a colour, a
character, and direction, to all the politics of Europe.

These principles of internal as well as external division
and coalition are but just now extinguished. But they,
who will examine into the true character and genius of
some late events, must be satisfied that other sources of
faction, combining parties among the inhabitants of
different countries into one connexion, are opened, and
that from these sources are likely to arise effects full as
important as those which had formerly arisen from
the jarring interests of the religious sects. The inten-
tion of the several actors in the change in France is not
a matter of doubt. It is very openly professed.

In the modern world, before this time, there has been
no instance of this spirit of general political faction,
separated from religion, pervading several countries, and
forming a principle of union between the partisans in
each. But the thing is not less in human nature. The

330 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

ancient world has furnished a strong and striking
instance of such a ground for faction, full as powerful
and full as mischievous as our spirit of religious system
had ever been ; exciting in all the states of Greece
(European and Asiatic) the most violent animosities,
and the most cruel and bloody persecutions and pro-
scriptions. These ancient factions in each common-
wealth of Greece connected themselves with those of
the same description in some other states ; and secret
cabals and public alliances were carried on and made,
not upon a conformity of general political interests, but
for the support and aggrandizement of the two leading
states which headed the aristocratic and democratic
factions. For, as ki latter times, the King of Spain
was at the head of a Catholic, and the King of Sweden
of a Protestant interest, (France, though Catholic,
acting subordinately to the latter,) in the like manner
the Lacedemonians were everywhere at the head of the
aristocratic interests, and the Athenians of the demo-
cratic. The two leading powers kept alive a constant
cabal and conspiracy in every state, and the political
dogmas concerning the constitution of a republic were
the great instruments by which these leading states
chose to aggrandize themselves. Their choice was not
unwise ; because the interest in opinions (merely as
opinions, and without any experimental reference to
their effects) when once they take strong hold of the
mind, become the most operative of all interests, and
indeed very often supersede every other.

I might further exemplify the possibility of a political
sentiment running through various states, and com-
bining factions in them, from the history of the middle
ages in the Guelfs and Ghibellines. These were political
factions originally in favour of the emperor and the
pope, with no mixture of religious dogmas : or if any-
thing religiously doctrinal they had in them originally,
it very soon disappeared ; as their first political objects
disappeared also, though the spirit remained. They
became no more than names to distinguish factions :
but they were not the less powerful in their operation,

A SOVEREIGN MAJORITY 331

when they had no direct point of doctrine, either reli-
gious or civil, to assert. For a long time, however,
those factions gave no small degree of influence to the
foreign chiefs in every commonwealth in which they
existed. I do not mean to pursue further the track of
these parties. I allude to this part of history only, as
it furnishes an instance of that species of faction which
broke the locality of public affections, and united
descriptions of citizens more with strangers than with
their countrymen of different opinions.

The political dogma, which, upon the new French
system is to unite the factions of different nations, is
this, ' That the majority, told by the head, of the
taxable people in every country, is the perpetual,
natural, unceasing, indefeasible sovereign ; that this
majority is perfectly master of the form, as well as the
administration, of the state, and that the magistrates,
under whatever names they are called, are only func-
tionaries to obey the orders (general as laws or particular
as decrees) which that majority may make ; that this is
the only natural government ; that all others are
tyranny and usurpation.'

In order to reduce this dogma into practice, the re-
publicans in France, and their associates in other
countries, make it always their business, and often
their public profession, to destroy all traces of ancient
establishments, and to form a new commonwealth in
each country, upon the basis of the French Rights of
Men. On the principle of these rights, they mean to
institute in every country, and, as it were, the germ of
the whole, parochial governments, for the purpose of
what they call equal representation. From them is to
grow, by some media, a general council and representa-
tive of all the parochial governments. In that repre-
sentative is to be vested the whole national power ;
totally abolishing hereditary name and office, levelling
ail conditions of men (except where money must make
a difference), breaking all connexion between territory
and dignity, and abolishing every species of nobility,
gentry, and church establishments ; all their priests,

332 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

and all their magistrates, being only creatures of
election, and pensioners at will.

Knowing how opposite a permanent landed interest
is to that scheme, they have resolved, and it is the great
drift of all their regulations, to reduce that description
of men to a mere peasantry for the sustenance of the
towns, and to place the true effective government in
cities, among the tradesmen, bankers, and voluntary
clubs of bold, presuming young persons ; advocates,
attorneys, notaries, managers of newspapers, and those
cabals of literary men, called academies. Their
republic is to have a first functionary, (as they call him,)
under the name of king, or not, as they think fit. This
officer, when such an officer is permitted, is, however,
neither in fact nor name, to be considered a sovereign,
nor the people as his subjects. The very use of these
appellations is offensive to their ears.

This system, as it has first been realized, dogmatically,
as well as practically, in France, makes France the
natural head of all factions formed on a similar principle,
wherever they may prevail, as much as Athens was the
head and settled ally of all democratic factions, where-
ever they existed. The other system has no head.

This system has very many partisans in every country
in Europe, but particularly in England, where they are
already formed into a body, comprehending most of
the dissenters of the three leading denominations ; to
these are readily aggregated all who are dissenters in
character, temper, and disposition, though not belonging
to any of their congregations — that is, all the restless
people who resemble them, of all ranks and all parties —
Whigs, and even Tories — the whole race of half-bred
speculators ; — all the Atheists, Deists, and Socinians ;
— all those who hate the clergy, and envy the nobility ;
— a good many among the monied people ; — the East
Indians almost to a man, who cannot bear to find that
their present importance does not bear a proportion to
their wealth. These latter have united themselves into
one great, and, in my opinion, formidable club 1, which,

1 Originally called the Bengal Club ; but since opened

HALF-BRED SPECULATORS 333

though now quiet, may be brought into action with
considerable unanimity and force.

Formerly few, except the ambitious great, or the
desperate and indigent, were to be feared as instruments
in revolutions. What has happened in France teaches
us, with many other things, that there are more causes
than have commonly been taken into our consideration,
by which government may be subverted. The monied
men, merchants, principal tradesmen, and men of letters
(hitherto generally thought the peaceable and even
timid part of society), are the chief actors in the French
revolution. But the fact is, that as money increases
and circulates, and as the circulation of news, in politics
and letters, becomes more and more diffused, the per-
sons who diffuse this money, and this intelligence,
become more and more important. This was not long
undiscovered. Views of ambition were in France, for
the first time, presented to these classes of men. Ob-
jects in the state, in the army, in the system of civil
offices of every kind. Their eyes were dazzled with
this new prospect. They were, as it were, electrified
and made to lose the natural spirit of their situation.
A bribe, great without example in the history of the
world, was held out to them — the whole government of
a very large kingdom.

There are several who are persuaded that the same
thing cannot happen in England, because here (they
say) the occupations of merchants, tradesmen, and
manufacturers, are not held as degrading situations.
I once thought that the low estimation in which com-
merce was held in France might be reckoned among
the causes of the late revolution ; and I am still of
opinion, that the exclusive spirit of the French nobility
did irritate the wealthy of other classes. But I found
long since, that persons in trade and business were by
no means despised in France in the manner I had been
taught to believe. As to men of letters, they were so
far from being despised or neglected, that there was no

to persons from the other presidencies, for the purpose of
consolidating the whole Indian interest.

334 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

country, perhaps, in the universe, in which they were
so highly esteemed, courted, caressed, and even feared :
tradesmen naturally were not so much sought in
society (as not furnishing so largely to the fund of con-
versation as they do to the revenues of the state), but
the latter description got forward every day. M. Bailly,
who made himself the popular mayor on the rebellion
of the Bastile, and is a principal actor in the revolt,
before the change possessed a pension or office under
the crown of six hundred pounds English a year ; for
that country, no contemptible provision : and this he
obtained solely as a man of letters, and on no other title.
As to the monied men — whilst the monarchy continued,
there is no doubt, that merely as such, they did not
enjoy the privileges of nobility ; but nobility was of so
easy an acquisition, that it was the fault or neglect of
all of that description, who did not obtain its privileges,
for their lives at least, in virtue of office. It attached
under the royal government to an innumerable multi-
tude of places, real and nominal, that were vendible ;
and such nobility were as capable of everything as
their degree of influence or interest could make them,
that is, as nobility of no considerable rank or conse-
quence. M. Necker, so far from being a French gentle-
man, was not so much as a Frenchman born, and yet
we all know the rank in which he stood on the day of the
meeting of the states.

As to the mere matter of estimation of the mercantile
or any other class, this is regulated by opinion and pre-
judice. In England, a security against the envy of
men in these classes is not so very complete as we may
imagine. We must not impose upon ourselves. What
institutions and manners together had done in France,
manners alone do here. It is the natural operation of
things where there exists a crown, a court, splendid
orders of knighthood, and an hereditary nobility ; —
where there exists a fixed, permanent, landed gentry.
continued in greatness and opulence by the law of
primogeniture, and by a protection given to family
settlements ; — where there exists a standing army and

SPREAD OF DANGEROUS OPINIONS 335

navy ; — where there exists a church establishment,
which bestows on learning and parts an interest com-
bined with that of religion and the state ; — in a country
where such things exist, wealth, new in its acquisition,
and precarious in its duration, can never rank first, or
even near the first ; though wealth has its natural
weight further than as it is balanced and even prepon-
derated amongst us as amongst other nations, by
artificial institutions and opinions growing out of them.
At no period in the history of England have so few
peers been taken out of trade or from families newly
created by commerce. In no period has so small a
number of noble families entered into the counting-
house. I can call to mind but one in all England, and
his is of near fifty years' standing. Be that as it may,
it appears plain to me, from my best observation, that
envy and ambition may, by art, management, and
disposition, be as much excited amongst these descrip-
tions of men in England, as in any other country ; and
that they are just as capable of acting a part in any great
change.

What direction the French spirit of proselytism is
likely to take, and in what order it is likely to prevail in
the several parts of Europe, it is not easy to deter-
mine.

The seeds are sown almost everywhere, chiefly by
newspaper circulations, infinitely more efficacious and
extensive than ever they were. And they are a more
important instrument than generally is imagined. They
are a part of the reading of all, they are the whole of the
reading of the far greater number. There are thirty
of them in Paris alone. The language diffuses them
more widely than the English, though the English too
are much read. The writers of these papers, indeed, for
the greater part, are either unknown or in contempt, but
they are like a battery in which the stroke of any one ball
produces no great effect, but the amount of continual
repetition is decisive. Let us only suffer any person
to tell us his story, morning and evening, but for one
twelvemonth, and he will become our master.

336 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

All those countries in which several states are com-
prehended under some general geographical description,
and loosely united by some federal constitution ;
countries of which the members are small, and greatly
diversified in their forms of government, and in the titles
by which they are held — these countries, as it might
be well expected, are the principal objects of their hopes
and machinations. Of these, the chief are Germany
and Switzerland : after them, Italy has its place, as ia
circumstances somewhat similar.

As to Germany, (hi which, from their relation to the
emperor, I comprehended the Belgic provinces,) it
appears to me to be from several circumstances, internal
and external, in a very critical situation, and the laws
and liberties of the empire are by no means secure from
the contagion of the French doctrines, and the effect
of French intrigues ; or from the use which two of the
greater German powers may make of a general derange-
ment, to the general detriment. I do not say that the
French do not mean to bestow on these German states
liberties, and laws too, after their mode ; but those are
not what have hitherto been understood as the laws and
liberties of the empire. These exist and have always
existed under the principles of feodal tenure and succes-
sion, under imperial constitutions, grants and conces-
sions of sovereigns, family compacts, and public treaties,
made under the sanction, and some of them guaranteed
by the sovereign powers of other nations, and particu-
larly the old government of France, the author and
natural support of the treaty of Westphalia.

In short, the Germanic body is a vast mass of hetero-
geneous states, held together by that heterogeneous
body of old principles, which formed the public law
positive and doctrinal. The modern laws and liberties,
which the new power in France proposes to introduce
into Germany, and to support with all its force, of
intrigue and of arms, is of a very different nature, utterly
irreconcilable with the first, and indeed fundamentally
the reverse of it : I mean the rights and liberties of the
man, the droit de Vhomme. That this doctrine has made

IN GERMANY 337

an amazing progress in Germany there cannot be a
shadow of doubt. They are infected by it along the
whole course of the Rhine, the Maese, the Moselle, and
in the greater part of Suabia and Franconia. It is
particularly prevalent amongst all the lower people,
churchmen, and laity, in the dominions of the ecclesi-
astical electors. It is not easy to find or to conceive
governments more mild and indulgent than these
church sovereignties ; but good government is as nothing
when the rights of man take possession of the mind.
Indeed, the loose rein held over the people in these
provinces must be considered as one cause of the facility
with which they lend themselves to any schemes of
innovation, by inducing them to think lightly of their
governments, and to judge of grievances, not by feeling,
but by imagination.

It is in these electorates that the first impressions of
France are likely to be made, and if they succeed, it is
over with the Germanic body as it stands at present.
A great revolution is preparing in Germany ; and a
revolution, in my opinion, likely to be more decisive
upon the general fate of nations than that of France
itself ; other than as in France is to be found the first
source of all the principles which are in any way likely
to distinguish the troubles and convulsions of our age.
If Europe does not conceive the independence, and the
equilibrium of the empire to be in the very essence of
the system of balanced power in Europe, and if the
scheme of public law, or mass of laws, upon which that
independence and equilibrium are founded, be of no
leading consequence as they are preserved or destroyed,
all the politics of Europe for more than two centuries
have been miserably erroneous.

If the two great leading powers of Germany do not
regard this danger (as apparently they do not) in the
light in which it presents itself so naturally, it is because
they are powers too great to have a social interest.
That sort of interest belongs only to those whose state
of weakness or mediocrity is such as to give them
greater cause of apprehension from what may destroy

BURKE. IV Z

338 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

them, than of hope from any thing by which they may
be aggrandized.

As long as those two princes are at variance, so long
the liberties of Germany are safe. But, if ever they
should so far understand one another, as to be per-
suaded that they have a more direct and more certainly
defined interest in a proportioned, mutual aggrandize-
ment, than in a reciprocal reduction, that is, if they come
to think that they are more likely to be enriched by a
division of spoil, than to be rendered secure by keeping
to the old policy of preventing others from being spoiled
by either of them, from that moment the liberties of
Germany are no more.

That a junction of two in such a scheme is neither
impossible nor improbable, is evident from the partition
of Poland in 1773, which was effected by such a junction
as made the interposition of other nations to prevent it,
not easy. Their circumstances at that time hindered
any other three states, or indeed any two, from taking
measures in common to prevent it, though France was
at that time an existing power, and had not yet learned
to act upon a system of politics of her own invention.
The geographical position of Poland was a great obstacle
to any movements of France in opposition to this, at that
time, unparalleled league. To my certain knowledge, if
Great Britain had at that time been willing to concur in
preventing the execution of a project so dangerous in
the example, even exhausted as France then was by the
preceding war, and under a lazy and unenterprising
prince, she would have at every risk taken an active
part in this business. But a languor with regard to so
remote an interest, and the principles and passions
which were then strongly at work at home, were the
causes why Great Britain would not give France any
encouragement in such an enterprise. At that time,
however, and with regard to that object, in my opinion,
Great Britain and France had a common interest.

But the position of Germany is not like that of Poland,
with regard to France, either for good or for evil. If a
conjunction between Prussia and the emperor should

EUROPEAN ALLIANCES DISTURBED 339

be formed for the purpose of secularizing and rendering
hereditary the ecclesiastical electorates and the bishopric
of Munster, for settling two of them on the children of
the emperor, and uniting Cologne and Munster to the
dominions of the King of Prussia on the Rhine, or if any
other project of mutual aggrandizement should be in
prospect, and that, to facilitate such a scheme, the
modern French should be permitted and encouraged to
shake the internal and external security of these eccle-
siastical electorates, Great Britain is so situated, that
she could not with any effect set herself in opposition
to such a design. Her principal arm, her marine, could
here be of no sort of use.

France, the author of the treaty of Westphalia, is the
natural guardian of the independence and balance of
Germany. Great Britain (to say nothing of the king's
concern as one of that august body ) has a serious
interest in preserving it ; but, except through the
power of France, acting upon the common old principles
of state policy, in the case we have supposed, she has no
sort of means of supporting that interest. It is always
the interest of Great Britain that the power of France
should be kept within the bounds of moderation. It is
not her interest that that power should be wholly anni-
hilated in the system of Europe. Though at one time
through France the independence of Europe was en-
dangered, it is, and ever was, through her alone that
the common liberty of Germany can be secured against
the single or the combined ambition of any other power.
In truth, within this century the aggrandizement of
other sovereign houses has been such that there has
been a great change in the whole state of Europe ; and
other nations as well as France may become objects
of jealousy and apprehension.

In this state of things, a new principle of alliances
and wars is opened. The treaty of Westphalia is, with
France, an antiquated fable. The rights and liberties
she was bound to maintain are now a system of wrong
and tyranny which she is bound to destroy. Her good
and ill dispositions are shown by the same means. To
z 2

340 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

communicate peaceably the rights of men is the true
mode of her showing her friendship ; to force sovereigns
to submit to those rights is her mode of hostility. So
that either as friend or foe her whole scheme has been,
and is, to throw the empire into confusion ; and those
statesmen, who follow the old routine of politics, may
see, in this general confusion, and in the danger of the
lesser princes, an occasion, as protectors or enemies, of
connecting their territories to one or the other of the
two great German powers. They do not take into
consideration that the means which they encourage, as
leading to the event they desire, will with certainty not
only ravage and destroy the empire, but, if they should
for a moment seem to aggrandize the two great houses,
will also establish principles, and confirm tempers
amongst the people, which will preclude the two sove-
reigns from the possibility of holding what they acquire,
or even the dominions which they have inherited. It
is on the side of the ecclesiastical electorates that the
dykes, raised to support the German liberty, first will
give way.

The French have begun their general operations by
seizing upon those territories of the pope, the situation
of which was the most inviting to the enterprise. Their
method of doing it was by exciting sedition and spread-
ing massacre and desolation through these unfortunate
places, and then, under an idea of kindness and pro-
tection, bringing forward an antiquated title of the
crown of France, and annexing Avignon and the two
cities of the Comtat, with their territory, to the French
republic. They have made an attempt on Geneva, in
which they very narrowly failed of success. It is known
that they hold out from time to time the idea of uniting
all the other provinces of which Gaul was anciently
composed, including Savoy on the other side, and on
this side bounding themselves by the Rhine.

As to Switzerland, it is a country whose long union,
rather than its possible division, is the matter of won-
der. Here I know they entertain very sanguine hopes.
The aggregation to France of the democratic Swiss re-

DESIGNS ON SWITZERLAND 341

publics appears to them to be a work half done by their
very form ; and it might seem to them rather an in-
crease of importance to these little commonwealths,
than a derogation from their independency, or a change
in the manner of their government. Upon any quarrel
amongst the cantons, nothing is more likely than such
an event. As to the aristocratic republics, the general
clamour and hatred which the French excite against
the very name, (and with more facility and success
than against monarchs,) and the utter impossibility of
their government making any sort of resistance against
an insurrection, where they have no troops, and the
people are all armed and trained, render their hopes,
in that quarter, far indeed from unfounded. It is cer-
tain that the republic of Berne thinks itself obliged to
a vigilance next to hostile, and to imprison or expel all
the French whom it finds in its territories. But, indeed,
those aristocracies, which comprehend whatever is
considerable, wealthy, and valuable, in Switzerland, do
now so wholly depend upon opinion, and the humour
of their multitude, that the lightest puff of wind is
sufficient to blow them down. If France, under its
ancient regimen, and upon the ancient principles of
policy, was the support of the Germanic constitution,
it was much more so of that of Switzerland, which al-
most from the very origin of that confederacy rested
upon the closeness of its connexion with France, on
which the Swiss Cantons wholly reposed themselves for
the preservation of the parts of their body in their re-
spective rights and permanent forms, as well as for the
maintenance of all in their general independency.

Switzerland and Germany are the first objects of the
new French politicians. When I contemplate what
they have done at home, which is, in effect, little less
than an amazing conquest wrought by a change of
opinion, in a great part (to be sure far from altogether)
very sudden, I cannot help letting my thoughts run
along with their designs, and, without attending to
geographical order, considering the other states of
Europe so far as they may be any way affected by this

342 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

astonishing revolution. If early steps are not taken
in some way or other to prevent the spreading of this
influence, I scarcely think any of them perfectly secure.

Italy is divided, as Germany and Switzerland are,
into many smaller states, and with some considerable
diversity as to forms of government ; but as these
divisions and varieties in Italy are not so considerable,
so neither do I think the danger altogether so imminent
there as in Germany and Switzerland. Savoy I know
that the French consider as in a very hopeful way, and
I believe not at all without reason. They view it as
an old member of the kingdom of France which may be
easily re-united in the manner, and on the principles
of the re-union of Avignon. This country communi-
cates with Piedmont ; and, as the King of Sardinia's
dominions were long the key of Italy, and as such long
regarded by France, whilst France acted on her old
maxims, and with views on Italy ; so, in this new
French empire of sedition, if once she gets that key
into her hands, she can easily lay open the barrier which
hinders the entrance of her present politics into that
inviting region. Milan, I am sure, nourishes great dis-
quiets— and, if Milan should stir, no part of Lombardy
is secure to the present possessors — whether the Vene-
tian or the Austrian. Genoa is closely connected with
France.

The first prince of the house of Bourbon has been
obliged to give himself up entirely to the new system,
and to pretend even to propagate it with all zeal ; at
least that club of intriguers who assemble at the Feuil-
lans, and whose cabinet meets at Madame de Stael's,
and makes and directs all the ministers, is the real
executive government of France. The emperor is per-
fectly in concert, and they will not long suffer any
prince of the house of Bourbon to keep by force the
French emissaries out of their dominions ; nor whilst
France has a commerce with them, especially through
Marseilles (the hottest focus of sedition in France), will
it be long possible to prevent the intercourse or the
effects.

ITALY 343

Naples has an old, inveterate disposition to repub-
licanism, and (however for some time past quiet) is as
liable to explosion as its own Vesuvius. Sicily, I think,
has these dispositions in full as strong a degree. In
neither of these countries exists anything which very
well deserves the name of government or exact police.

In the States of the Church, notwithstanding their
strictness in banishing the French out of that country,
they are not wanting the seeds of a revolution. The
spirit of nepotism prevails there nearly as strong as
ever. Every pope of course is to give origin or restora-
tion to a great family, by the means of large donations.
The foreign revenues have long been gradually on the
decline, and seem now in a manner dried up. To supply
this defect the resource of vexatious and impolitic job-
bing at home, if anything, is rather increased than
lessened. Various well intended but ill understood
practices, some of them existing, in their spirit at least,
from the time of the old Roman empire, still prevail ;
and that government is as blindly attached to old,
abusive customs, as others are wildly disposed to all
sorts of innovations and experiments. These abuses
were less felt whilst the pontificate drew riches from
abroad, which in some measure counterbalanced the
evils of their remiss and jobbish government at home.
But now it can subsist only on the resources of domestic
management ; and abuses in that management of
course will be more intimately and more severely felt.

In the midst of the apparently torpid languor of the
ecclesiastical state, those who have had opportunity of
a near observation have seen a little rippling in that
smooth water, which indicates something alive under it.
There is, in the ecclesiastical state, a personage who
seems capable of acting (but with more force and steadi-
ness) the part of the tribune Rienzi. The people, once
inflamed, will not be destitute of a leader. They have
such an one already hi the Cardinal or Archbishop Buon
Campagna. He is, of all men, if I am not ill informed,
the most turbulent, seditious, intriguing, bold, and
desperate. He is not at all made for a Roman of the

344 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

present day. I think he lately held the first office of
their state, that of great chamberlain, which is equiva-
lent to high treasurer. At present he is out of employ-
ment, and in disgrace. If he should be elected pope,
or even come to have any weight with a new pope, he
will infallibly conjure up a democratic spirit in that
country. He may indeed be able to effect it without
these advantages. The next interregnum will probably
show more of him. There may be others of the same
character, who have not come to my knowledge. This
much is certain, that the Rtman people, if o.nce the
blind reverence they bear to the sanctity of the pope,
which is their only bridle, should relax, are naturally
turbulent, ferocious, and headlong, whilst the police
is defective, and the government feeble and resourceless
beyond all imagination.

As to Spain, it is a nerveless country. It does not
possess the use, it only suffers the abuse, of a nobility.
For some time, and even before the settlement of the
Bourbon dynasty, that body has been systematically
lowered, and rendered incapable by exclusion, and for
incapacity excluded from affairs. In this circle the
body is in a manner annihilated, — and so little means
have they of any weighty exertion either to control or
to support the crown, that if they at all interfere, it is
only by abetting desperate and mobbish insurrections,
like that at Madrid, which drove Squillace from his
place. Florida Blanca is a creature of office, and has
little connexion and no sympathy with that body.

As to the clergy, they are the only thing in Spain
that looks like an independent order, and they are kept
in some respect by the Inquisition, the sole but un-
happy resource of public tranquillity and order now
remaining in Spain. As in Venice, it is become mostly
an engine of state, which indeed to a degree it has
always been hi Spain. It wars no longer with Jews
and heretics ; it has no such war to carry on. Its
great object is to keep atheistic and republican doctrines
from making their way hi that kingdom. No French
book upon any subject can enter there which does not

SPAIN— A NERVELESS COUNTRY 345

contain such matter. In Spain, the clergy are of mo-
ment from their influence, but at the same time with
the envy and jealousy that attend great riches and
power. Though the crown has by management with
the pope got a very great share of the ecclesiastical
revenues into its own hands, much still remains to
them. There will always be about that court those who
look out to a farther division of the church property
as a resource, and to be obtained by shorter methods,
than those of negotiations with the clergy and their
chief. But at present I think it likely that they will
stop, lest the business should be taken out of their
hands : and lest that body, in which remains the only
life that exists in Spain, and is not a fever, may with
their property lose all the influence necessary to pre-
serve the monarchy, or, being poor and desperate, may
employ whatever influence remains to them as active
agents in its destruction.

The Castilians have still remaining a good deal of
their old character, their gravidad, lealdad, and il timor
de Dios ; but that character neither is, nor ever was,
exactly true, except of the Castilians only. The several
kingdoms, which compose Spain, have, perhaps, some
features which run through the whole ; but they are
in many particulars as different as nations who go by
different names : the Catalans, for instance, and the
Arragonians too, in a great measure have the spirit of
the Miquelets, and much more of republicanism than
of an attachment to royalty. They are more in the
way of trade and intercourse with France ; and, upon
the least internal movement, will disclose and probably
let loose a 'spirit that may throw the whole Spanish
monarchy into convulsions.

It is a melancholy reflection that the spirit of meliora-
tion which has been going on hi that part of Europe,
more or less during this century, and the various schemes
very lately on foot for further advancement, are all put
a stop to at once. Reformation certainly is nearly con-
nected with innovation — and, where that latter comes
in for too large a share, those who undertake to improve

346 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

their country may risk their own safety. In times
where the correction, which includes the confession, of
an abuse, is turned to criminate the authority which
has long suffered it, rather than to honour those who
would amend it, (which is the spirit of this malignant
French distemper,) every step out of the common
course becomes critical, and renders it a task full of
peril for princes of moderate talents to engage hi great
undertakings. At present the only safety of Spain is
the old national hatred to the French. How far that
can be depended upon, if any great ferments should
be excited, it is impossible to say.

As to Portugal, she is out of the high road of these
politics — I shall, therefore, not divert my thoughts that
way ; but return again to the North of Europe, which
at present seems the part most interested, and there it
appears to me that the French speculation on the
northern countries may be valued in the following, or
some such manner.

Denmark and Norway do not appear to furnish any
of the materials of a democratic revolution, or the dis-
positions to it. Denmark can only be consequentially
affected by anything done in France ; but of Sweden
I think quite otherwise. The present power in Sweden
is too new a system and too green, and too sore, from
its late revolution, to be considered as perfectly assured.
The king, by his astonishing activity, his boldness, his
decision, his ready versatility, and by rousing and em-
ploying the old military spirit of Sweden, keeps up the
top with continual agitation and lashing. The moment
it ceases to spin, the royalty is a dead bit of box. When-
ever Sweden is quiet externally for some time, there is
great danger that all the republican elements she con-
tains will be animated by the new French spirit, and
of this I believe the king is very sensible.

The Russian Government is of all others the most
liable to be subverted by military seditions, by court
conspiracies, and sometimes by headlong rebellions of
the people, such as the turbinating movement of Pu-
gatchef. It is not quite so probable that in any of

RUSSIA AND POLAND 347

these changes the spirit of system may mingle in the
manner it has done in France. The Muscovites are no
great speculators — but I should not much rely on their
uninquisitive disposition, if any of their ordinary mo-
tives to sedition should arise. The little catechism of
the rights of men is soon learned ; and the inferences
are in the passions.

Poland, from one cause or other, is always unquiet.
The new constitution only serves to supply that restless
people with new means, at least new modes of cherish-
ing their turbulent disposition. The bottom of the
character is the same. It is a great question, whether
the joining that crown with the electorate of Saxony
will contribute most to strengthen the royal authority
of Poland, or to shake the ducal in Saxony. The
elector is a Catholic ; the people of Saxony are, six-
sevenths at the very least, Protestants. He must con-
tinue a Catholic, according to the Polish law, if he ac-
cepts that crown. The pride of the Saxons, formerly
flattered by having a crown in the house of their prince,
though an honour which cost them dear ; the German
probity, fidelity and loyalty ; the weight of the con-
stitution of the empire under the treaty of Westphalia ;
the good temper and good nature of the princes of the
house of Saxony ; had formerly removed from the
people all apprehension with regard to their religion,
and kept them perfectly quiet, obedient, and even affec-
tionate. The seven years' war made some change in
the minds of the Saxons. They did not, I believe, regret
the loss of what might be considered almost as the suc-
cession to the crown of Poland, the possession of which,
by annexing them to a foreign interest, had often
obliged them to act an arduous part, towards the sup-
port of which that foreign interest afforded no propor-
tionable strength. In this very delicate situation of
their political interests, the speculations of the French
and German economists, and the cabals, and the secret,
as well as public doctrines of the illuminatenorden and
free masons, have made a considerable progress in that
country ; and a turbulent spirit under colour of religion,

348 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFRIRS

but in reality arising from the French rights of man,
has already shown itself, and is ready on every occasion
to blaze out.

The present elector is a prince of a safe and quiet
temper, of great prudence, and goodness. He knows
that, in the actual state of things, not the power and
respect belonging to sovereigns, but their very existence
depends on a reasonable frugality. It is very certain
that not one sovereign in Europe can either promise for
the continuance of his authority in a state of indigence
and insolvency, or dares to venture on a new imposition
to relieve himself. Without abandoning wholly the
ancient magnificence of his court, the elector has con-
ducted his affairs with infinitely more economy than
any of his predecessors, so as to restore his finances be-
yond what was thought possible from the state in which
the seven years' war had left Saxony. Saxony, during
the whole of that dreadful period, having been in the
hands of an exasperated enemy, rigorous by resentment,
by nature and by necessity, was obliged to bear in a
manner the whole burden of the war ; in the intervals
when their allies prevailed, the inhabitants of that
country were not better treated.

The moderation and prudence of the present elector,
in my opinion, rather perhaps respites the troubles than
secures the peace of the electorate. The offer of the
succession to the crown of Poland is truly critical,
whether he accepts, or whether he declines it. If the
states will consent to his acceptance, it will add to the
difficulties, already great, of his situation between the
King of Prussia and the emperor. But these thoughts
lead me too far, when I mean to speak only of the in-
terior condition of these princes. It has always, how-
ever, some necessary connexion with their foreign
politics.

With regard to Holland, and the ruling party there,
I do not think it at all tainted, or likely to be so, except
by fear ; or that it is likely to be misled, unless in-
directly and circuitously. But the predominant party
in Holland is not Holland. The suppressed faction,

THE NETHERLANDS 349

though suppressed, exists. Under the ashes, the em-
bers of the late commotions are still warm. The anti-
Orange party has from the day of its origin been French,
though alienated in some degree for some time, through
the pride and folly of Louis XIV. It will ever hanker
after a French connexion ; and now that the internal
government in France has been assimilated in so con-
siderable a degree to that which the immoderate repub-
licans began so very lately to introduce into Holland,
their connexion, as still more natural, will be more
desired. I do not well understand the present exterior
politics of the stadtholder, nor the treaty into which
the newspapers say he has entered for the States with
the emperor. But the emperor's own politics with re-
gard to the Netherlands seem to me to be exactly calcu-
lated to answer the purpose of the French revolutionists.
He endeavours to crush the aristocratic party — and to
nourish one in avowed connexion with the most furious
democratists in France.

These provinces in which the French game is so well
played, they consider as part of the old French empire :
certainly they were amongst the oldest parts of it.
These they think very well situated, as their party is
well disposed to a re-union. As to the greater nations,
they do not aim at making a direct conquest of them,
but by disturbing them through a propagation of their
principles, they hope to weaken, as they will weaken
them, and to keep them in perpetual alarm and agita-
tion, and thus render all their efforts against them
utterly impracticable, whilst they extend the dominion
of their sovereign anarchy on all sides.

As to England, there may be some apprehension
from vicinity, from constant communication, and from
the very name of liberty, which, as it ought to be very
dear to us, in its worst abuses carries something se-
ductive. It is the abuse of the first and best of the
objects which we cherish. I know that many, who
sufficiently dislike the system of France, have yet no
apprehension of its prevalence here. I say nothing to
the ground of this security in the attachment of the

350 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

people to their constitution, and their satisfaction in
the discreet portion of liberty which it measures out
to them. Upon this I have said all I have to say, in
the appeal I have published. That security is some-
thing, and not inconsiderable. But if a storm arises
I should not much rely upon it.

There are other views of things which may be used
to give us a perfect (though in my opinion a delusive)
assurance of our own security. The first of these is
from the weakness and rickety nature of the new system
in the place of its first formation. It is thought that
the monster of a commonwealth cannot possibly live —
that at any rate the ill contrivance of their fabric will
make it fall in pieces of itself — that the assembly must
be bankrupt, and that this bankruptcy will totally
destroy that system, from the contagion of which
apprehensions are entertained.

For my part I have long thought that one great cause
of the stability of this wretched scheme of things in
France was an opinion that it could not stand ; and,
therefore, that all external measures to destroy it were
wholly useless.

As to the bankruptcy, that event has happened long
ago, as much as it is ever likely to happen. As soon as
a nation compels a creditor to take paper currency in
discharge of his debt, there is a bankruptcy. The com-
pulsory paper has in some degree answered ; not be-
cause there was a surplus from church lands, but
because faith has not been kept with the clergy. As to
the holders of the old funds, to them the payments will
be dilatory, but they will be made, and whatever may
be the discount on paper, whilst paper is taken, paper
will be issued.

As to the rest, they have shot out three branches of
revenue to supply all those which they have destroyed,
that is, the, Universal Register of all Transactions, the
heavy and universal Stamp Duty, and the new Terri-
torial Impost, levied chiefly on the reduced estates of
the gentlemen. These branches of the revenue, espe-
cially as they take assignats in payment, answer their

THE FRENCH SYSTEM 351

purpose in a considerable degree, and keep up the credit
of their paper ; for as they receive it in their treasury,
it is in reality funded upon all their taxes and future
resources of all kinds, as well as upon the church estates.
As this paper is become in a manner the only visible
maintenance of the whole people, the dread of a bank-
ruptcy is more apparently connected with the delay of
a counter-revolution, than with the duration of this
republic ; because the interest of the new republic mani-
festly leans upon it ; and, in my opinion, the counter-
revolution cannot exist along with it. The above three
projects ruined some ministers under the old govern-
ment, merely for having conceived them. They are the
salvation of the present rulers.

As the assembly has laid a most unsparing and cruel
hand on all men who have lived by the bounty, the
justice, or the abuses of the old government, they have
lessened many expenses. The royal establishment,
though excessively and ridiculously great for their
scheme of things, is reduced at least one-half ; the es-
tates of the king's brothers, which under the ancient
government had been in truth royal revenues, go to
the general stock of the confiscation ; and as to the
crown lands, though, under the monarchy, they never
yielded two hundred and fifty thousand a year, by many
they are thought at least worth three times as much.

As to the ecclesiastical charge, whether as a com-
pensation for losses, or a provision for religion, of which
they made at first a great parade, and entered into a
solemn engagement in favour of it, it was estimated at
a much larger sum than they could expect from the
church property, movable or immovable : they are com-
pletely bankrupt as to that article. It is just what they
wish ; and it is not productive of any serious inconveni-
ence. The non-payment produces discontent and occa-
sional sedition ; but it is only by fits and spasms, and
amongst the country people who aie of no consequence.
These seditions furnish new pretexts for non-payment
to the church establishment, and help the assembly
wholly to get rid of the clergy, and indeed of any form

352 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

of religion, which is not only their real, but avowed
object.

They are embarrassed indeed in the highest degree,
but not wholly resourceless. They are without the
species of money. Circulation of money is a great con-
venience, but a substitute for it may be found. Whilst
the great objects of production and consumption, corn,
cattle, wine, and the like, exist in a country, the means
of giving them circulation, with more or less conveni-
ence, cannot be wholly wanting. The great confiscation
of the church and of the crown lands, and of the appen-
dages of the princes, for the purchase of all which their
paper is always received at par, gives means of con-
tinually destroying and continually creating, and this
perpetual destruction and renovation feeds the specula-
tive market, and prevents, and will prevent, till that
fund of confiscation begins to fail, a total depreciation.

But all consideration of public credit in France is of
little avail at present. The action indeed of the monied
interest was of absolute necessity at the beginning of
this revolution ; but the French republic can stand
without any assistance from that description of men,
which, as things are now circumstanced, rather stands
in need of assistance itself from the power which alone
substantially exists in France ; I mean the several dis-
tricts and municipal republics, and the several clubs
which direct all their affairs and appoint all their magis-
trates. This is the power now paramount to every-
thing, even to the Assembly itself called National, and
that to which tribunals, priesthoods, laws, finances, and
both descriptions of military power are wholly subser-
vient, so far as the military power of either description
yields obedience to any name of authority.

The world of contingency and political combination is
much larger than we are apt to imagine. We never can
say what may, or may not happen, without a view to
all the actual circumstances. Experience, upon other
data than those, is of all things the most delusive.
Prudence in new cases can do nothing on grounds of
retrospect. A constant vigilance and attention to the

ITS BANKRUPTCY 353

train of things as they successively emerge, and to act
on what they direct, are the only sure courses. The
physician that let blood, and by blood-letting cured
one kind of plague, hi the next added to its ravages.
That power goes with property is not universally true,
and the idea that the operation of it is certain and
invariable may mislead us very fatally.

Whoever will take an accurate view of the state of
those republics, and of the composition of the present
assembly deputed by them (in which assembly there
are not quite fifty persons possessed of an income
amounting to 100?. sterling yearly), must discern clearly,
that the political and civil power of France is wholly sepa-
rated from its property of every description ; and of
course that neither the landed nor the monied interest
possesses the smallest weight or consideration in the
direction of any public concern. The whole kingdom
is directed by the refuse of its chicane, with the aid of
the bustling, presumptuous young clerks of counting-
houses and shops, and some intermixture of young
gentlemen of the same character in the several towns.
The rich peasants are bribed with church lands ; and
the poorer of that description are, and can be, counted
for nothing. They may rise hi ferocious, ill-directed
tumults — but they can only disgrace themselves and
signalize the triumph of their adversaries.

The truly active citizens, that is, the above descrip-
tions, are all concerned in intrigue respecting the various
objects in their local or their general government. The
rota, which the French have established for their Na-
tional Assembly, holds out the highest objects of ambi-
tion to such vast multitudes as, in an unexampled
measure, to widen the bottom of a new species of
interest merely political, and wholly unconnected with
birth or property. This scheme of a rota, though it
enfeebles the state, considered as one solid body, and
indeed wholly disables it from acting as such, gives
a great, an equal, and a diffusive strength to the demo-
cratic scheme. Seven hundred and fifty people, every
two years raised to the supreme power, has already
BUKKE. iv A a

354 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

produced at least fifteen hundred bold, acting politi-
cians ; a great number for even so great a country as
France. These men never will quietly settle in ordinary
occupations, nor submit to any scheme which must
reduce them to an entirely private condition, or to the
exercise of a steady, peaceful, but obscure and unimpor-
tant industry. Whilst they sit in the assembly they
are denied offices of trust and profit — but their short
duration makes this no restraint — during their proba-
tion and apprenticeship they are all salaried with an
income to the greatest part of them immense ; and,
after they have passed the novitiate, those who take
any sort of lead are placed in very lucrative offices,
according to their influence and credit, or appoint those
who divide their profits with them.

This supply of recruits to the corps of the highest
civil ambition goes on with a regular progression. In
very few years it must amount to many thousands.
These, however, will be as nothing in comparison to the
multitude of municipal officers, and officers of district
and department, of all sorts, who have tasted of power
and profit, and who hunger for the periodical return
of the meal. To these needy agitators, the glory of the
state, the general wealth and prosperity of the nation,
and the rise or fall of public credit, are as dreams ; nor
have arguments deduced from these topics any sort of
weight with them. The indifference with which the
assembly regards the state of their colonies, the only
valuable part of the French commerce, is a full proof
how little they are likely to be affected by anything
but the selfish game of their own ambition, now univer-
sally diffused.

It is true, amidst all these turbulent means of security
to their system, very great discontents everywhere pre-
vail. But they only produce misery to those who nurso
them at home, or exile, beggary, and in the end confisca-
tion, to those who are so impatient as to remove from
them. Each municipal republic has a committee, or
something hi the nature of a committee of research. In
these petty republics the tyranny is so near its object,

THE RULING FACTION 355

that it becomes instantly acquainted with every act of
every man. It stifles conspiracy in its very first move-
ments. Their power is absolute and uncontrollable.
No stand can be made against it. The republics are
besides so disconnected, that very little intelligence of
what happens in them is to be obtained, beyond their
own bounds, except by the means of their clubs, who
keep up a constant correspondence, and who give what
colour they please to such facts as they choose to com-
municate out of the track of their correspondence.
They all have some sort of communication, just as much
or as little as they please, with the centre. By this
confinement of all communication to the ruling faction,
any combination, grounded on the abuses and discon-
tents in one, scarcely can reach the other. There is
not one man, in any one place, to head them. The old
government had so much abstracted the nobility from
the cultivation of provincial interest, that no man in
France exists, whose power, credit, or consequence,
extends to two districts, or who is capable of uniting
them in any design, even if any man could assemble
ten men together, without being sure of a speedy lodg-
ing in a prison. One must not judge of the state of
France by what has been observed elsewhere. It does
not in the least resemble any other country. Analogi-
cal reasoning from history or from recent experience in
other places is wholly delusive.

In my opinion there never was seen so strong a govern-
ment internally as that of the French municipalities.
If ever any rebellion can arise against the present sys-
tem, it must begin where the revolution which gave
birth to it did, at the capital. Paris is the only place
in which there is the least freedom of intercourse. But
even there, so many servants as any man has, so many
spies, and irreconcilable domestic enemies.

But that place being the chief seat of the power and
intelligence of the ruling faction, and the place of occa-
sional resort for their fiercest spirits, even there a revo-
lution is not likely to have anything to feed it. The
leaders of the aristocratic party have been drawn out
A a 2

356 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

of the kingdom by order of the princes, on the hopes
held out by the emperor and the King of Prussia at
Pilnitz ; and as to the democratic factions in Paris,
amongst them there are no leaders possessed of an in-
fluence for any other purpose but that of maintaining
the present state of things. The moment they are seen
to warp, they are reduced to nothing. They have no
attached army — no party that is at all personal.

It is not to be imagined because a political system is,
under certain aspects, very unwise in its contrivance,
and very mischievous in its effects, that it therefore
can have no long duration. Its very defects may tend
to its stability, because they are agreeable to its nature.
The very faults in the constitution of Poland made it
last ; the veto which destroyed all its energy preserved
its life. What can be conceived so monstrous as the
republic of Algiers ? and that no less strange republic
of the Mamelukes in Egypt ? They are of the worst
form imaginable, and exercised in the worst manner,
yet they have existed as a nuisance on the earth for
several hundred years.

From all these considerations, and many more that
crowd upon me, three conclusions have long since arisen
in my mind —

First, that no counter-revolution is to be expected in
France, from internal causes solely.

Secondly, that the longer the present system exists,
the greater will be its strength ; the greater its power
to destroy discontents at home, and to resist all foreign
attempts in favour of these discontents.

Thirdly, that as long as it exists in France, it will be
the interest of the managers there, and it is in the very
essence of their plan, to disturb and distract all other
governments, and their endless succession of restless
politicians will continually stimulate them to new at-
tempts.

Princes are generally sensible that this is their com-
mon cause ; and two of them have made a public
declaration of their opinion to this effect. Against this
common danger, some of them, such as the King of

BURKE'S CONCLUSIONS 357

Spain, the King of Sardinia, and the republic of Berne,
are very diligent in using defensive measures.

If they were to guard against an invasion from France,
the merits of this plan of a merely defensive resistance
might be supported by plausible topics ; but as the
attack does not operate against these countries exter-
nally, but by an internal corruption (a sort of dry rot) ;
they, who pursue this merely defensive plan, against
a danger which the plan itself supposes to be serious,
cannot possibly escape it. For it is in the nature of all
defensive measures to be sharp and vigorous under the
impressions of the first alarm, and to relax by degrees ;
until at length the danger, by not operating instantly,
comes to appear as a false alarm ; so much so that the
next menacing appearance will look less formidable,
and will be less provided against. But to those who
are on the offensive it is not necessary to be always
alert. Possibly it is more their interest not to be so.
For their unforeseen attacks contribute to their success.

In the meantime a system of French conspiracy is
gaining ground in every country. This system happen-
ing to be founded on principles the most delusive indeed,
but the most flattering to the natural propensities of
the unthinking multitude, and to the speculations of
all those who think, without thinking very profoundly,
must daily extend its influence. A predominant incli-
nation towards it appears in all those who have no
religion, when otherwise their disposition leads them
to be advocates even for despotism. Hence Hume,
though I cannot say that he does not throw out some
expressions of disapprobation on the proceedings of the
levellers in the reign of Richard II., yet affirms that the
doctrines of John Ball were ' comformable to the ideas
of primitive equality, which are engraven in the hearts
of all men.''

Boldness formerly was not the character of Atheists
as such. They were even of a character nearly the
reverse ; they were formerly like the old Epicureans,
rather an unenterprising race. But of late they are
grown active, designing, turbulent, and seditious. They

358 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

are sworn enemies to kings, nobility, and priesthood.
We have seen all the academicians at Paris, with Con-
dorcet, the friend and correspondent of Priestley, at
their head, the most furious of the extravagant republi-
cans.

The late assembly, after the last captivity of the king,
had actually chosen this Condorcet by a majority in
the ballot, for preceptor to the dauphin, who was to be
taken out of the hands and direction of his parents, and
to be delivered over to this fanatic atheist, and furious
democratic republican. His untractability to these
leaders, and his figure in the club of Jacobins, which at
that time they wished to bring under, alone prevented
that part of the arrangement, and others in the same
style, from being carried into execution. Whilst he
was candidate for this office he produced his title to it
by promulgating the following ideas of the title of his
royal pupil to the crown. In a paper written by him,
and published with his name, against the re-establish-
ment, even of the appearance of monarchy under any
qualifications, he says: ' Jusqu'a ce moment ils (TAs-
semblee Nationale] n'ont rien prejuge encore. En se
reservant de nommer un gouverneur au dauphin, ils
n'ont pas prononce que cet enfant dut regner ; mais seule-
ment qu'il etoit possible que la constitution 1'y destinat ;
ils ont voulu que 1' education, effacant tout ce que les
prestiges du trone ont pu lui inspirer de prejuges sur lea
droits pretendus de sa naissance, qu'elle lui fit connoitre
de bonne heure, et Vegalite naturelle des hommes, et la
souverainete du peuple ; qu'elle lui apprit a ne pas
oublier que c'est du peuple qu'il tiendra le titre de roi,
et que le peuple n'o pas mime le droit de renoncer a celui
de Ven depouiller.

' Ils ont voulu que cette education le rendit egalement
digne par ses lumieres, et ses vertus, de recevoir avec
resignation le fardeau dangereux d'une couronne, ou de
la deposer avec joie entre les mains de ses freres, qu'il
sen tit que le devoir, et la gloire du roi d'un peuple libre,
eat de hater le moment de n'etre plus qu'un citoyen
ordinaire.

CONDORCET'S SENTIMENTS 35&

' Us ont voulu que I'inutilite d'un roi, la necessity de
chercher les moyens de remplacer un pouvoir fonde sur
les illusions, fut une des premieres verites offertes a sa
raison ; I 'obligation d?y concourir lui-meme un des pre-
miers devoirs de sa morale ; et le desir, de n'ttre plus
affranchi du joug de la loi, par une injurieuse inviola-
bilite, le premier sentiment de son cceur. Ils n'ignorent
pas que dans ce moment il s'agit bien moins de former
un roi que de lui apprendre a savoir, a vouloir ne plu»
Vitre V

Such are the sentiments of the man who has occasion-
ally filled the chair of the National Assembly, who is
their perpetual secretary, their only standing officer,

1 ' Until now, they (the National Assembly) have pre-
judged nothing. Reserving to themselves a right to
appoint a preceptor to the dauphin, they did not declare
that this child was to reign ; but only that possibly the
constitution might destine him to it : they willed that
while education should efface from his mind all the pre-
judices arising from the delusions of the throne respecting
his pretended birth-right, it should also teach him not ta
forget, that it is from the people he is to receive the title
of king, and that the people do not even possess the right of
giving up their power to take it from him.

' They willed that this education should render him
worthy by his knowledge, and by his virtues, both to-
receive with submission the dangerous burden of a crown,,
and to resign it with pleasure into the hands of his brethren :
that he should be conscious that the hastening of that
moment when he is to be only a common citizen constitutes-
the duty and the glory of a king of free people.

' They willed that the uselessness of a king, the necessity
of seeking means to establish something in lieu of a power
founded on illusions, should be one of the first truths
offered to his reason ; the obligation of conforming himself
to this, the first of his moral duties ; and the desire of no-
longer being freed from the yoke of the law, by an injurious
inviolability, the first and chief sentiment of his heart. They
are not ignorant that in the present moment the object
is less to form a king, than to teach him that he should
know how to wish no longer to be such.'

360 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

and the most important by far. He leads them to
peace or war. He is the great theme of the republican
faction in England. These ideas of M. Condorcet are
the principles of those to whom kings are to entrust
their successors, and the interests of their succession.
This man would be ready to plunge the poniard in the
heart of his pupil, or to whet the axe for his neck. Of
all men, the most dangerous is a warm, hot-headed,
zealous atheist. This sort of man aims at dominion,
and his means are, the words he always has in his
mouth, ' L'egalite naturelle des hommes, et la sou-
verainete du peuple.'

All former attempts, grounded on these rights of men,
had proved unfortunate. The success of this last makes
a mighty difference in the effect of the doctrine. Here
is a principle of a nature to the multitude the most
seductive, always existing before their eyes, as a thing
feasible in practice. After so many failures, such an
enterprise, previous to the French experiment, carried
ruin to the contrivers, on the face of it ; and if any
enthusiast was so wild as to wish to engage in a scheme
of that nature, it was not easy for him to find followers :
now there is a party almost in all countries, ready made,
animated with success, with a sure ally in the very
centre of Europe. There is no cabal so obscure in any
place, that they do not protect, cherish, foster, and
endeavour to raise it into importance at home and
abroad. From the lowest, this intrigue will creep up
to the highest. Ambition, as well as enthusiasm, may
find its account in the party and in the principle.

The ministers of other kings, like those of the King
of France (not one of whom was perfectly free from
this guilt, and some of whom were very deep in it),
may themselves be the persons to foment such a dis-
position and such a faction. Hertzberg, the King of
Prussia's late minister, is so much of what is called
a philosopher, that he was of a faction with that sort
of politicians in every thing, and in every place. Even
when he defends himself from the imputation of giving
extravagantly into these principles, he still considers

CHARACTER OF FRENCH MINISTERS 361

the revolution of France as a great public good, by
giving credit to their fraudulent declaration of their
universal benevolence, and love of peace. Nor are his
Prussian majesty's present ministers at all disinclined
to the same system. Their ostentatious preamble to
certain late edicts demonstrates, (if their actions had
not been sufficiently explanatory of their cast of mind,)
that they are deeply infected with the same distemper
of dangerous, because plausible, though trivial and
shallow speculation.

Ministers, turning their backs on the reputation which
properly belongs to them, aspire at the glory of being
speculative writers. The duties of these two situations
are, in general, directly opposite to each other. Specu-
lators ought to be neutral. A minister cannot be so.
He is to support the interest of the public as connected
with that of his master. He is his master's trustee,
advocate, attorney, and steward — and he is not to in-
dulge in any speculation which contradicts that charac-
ter, or even detracts from its efficacy. Necker had an
extreme thirst for this sort of glory ; so had others ;
and this pursuit of a misplaced and misunderstood repu-
tation was one of the causes of the ruin of these minis-
ters, and of their unhappy master. The Prussian
ministers in foreign courts have (at least not long since)
talked the most democratic language with regard to
France, and in the most unmanaged terms.

The whole corps diplomatique, with very few excep-
tions, leans that way. What cause produces in them
a turn of mind, which at first one would think unnatural
to their situation, it is not impossible to explain. The
discussion would, however, be somewhat long and some-
what invidious. The fact itself is indisputable, how-
ever they may disguise it to their several courts. This
disposition is gone to so very great a length in that
corps, in itself so important, and so important as
furnishing the intelligence which sways all cabinets,
that if princes and states do not very speedily attend
with a vigorous control to that source of direction and
information, very serious evils are likely to befall them.

362 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

But indeed kings are to guard against the same sort
of dispositions in themselves. They are very easily
alienated from all the higher orders of their subjects,
whether civil or military, laic or ecclesiastical. It is
with persons of condition that sovereigns chiefly come
into contact. It is from them that they generally
experience opposition to their will. It is with their
pride and impracticability that princes are most hurt ;
it is with their servility and baseness that they are
most commonly disgusted ; it is from their humours
and cabals that they find their affairs most frequently
troubled and distracted. But of the common people,
in pure monarchical governments, kings know little or
nothing ; and therefore being unacquainted with their
faults, (which are as many as those of the great, and
much more decisive in their effects when accompanied
with power,) kings generally regard them with tenderness
and favour, and turn their eyes towards that description
of -their subjects, particularly when hurt by opposition
from the higher orders. It was thus that the King of
France (a perpetual example to all sovereigns) was
ruined. I have it from very sure information (and
indeed it was obvious enough from the measures which
were taken previous to the assembly of the states and
afterwards) that the king's counsellors had filled him
with a strong dislike to his nobility, his clergy, and
the corps of his magistracy. They represented to him,
that he had tried them all severally, in several ways,
and found them all untractable. That he had twice
called an assembly (the notables) composed of the first
men of the clergy, the nobility, and the magistrates ;
that he had himself named every one member in those
assemblies, and that, though so picked out, he had not,
in this their collective state, found them more disposed
to a compliance with his will than they had been
separately. That there remained for him, with the
least prospect of advantage to his authority hi the
states-general, which were to be composed of the same
sorts of men, but not chosen by him, only the tiers etat.
In this alone he could repose any hope of extricating

KING DELUDED TO HIS RUIN 363

himself from his difficulties, and of settling him in
a clear and permanent authority. They represented
(these are the words of one of my informants) ' that
the royal authority, compressed with the weight of
these aristocratic bodies, full of ambition and of faction,
when once unloaded, would rise of itself, and occupy
its natural place without disturbance or control ' : that
the common people would protect, cherish, and support,
instead of crushing it. ' The people (it was said) could
entertain no objects of ambition ; ' they were out of
the road of intrigue and cabal ; and could possibly have
no other view than the support of the mild and parental
authority by which they were invested, for the first
time collectively, with real importance in the state,
and protected in their peaceable and useful employ-
ments.

This unfortunate king (not without a large share of
blame to himself) was deluded to his ruin by a desire
to humble and reduce his nobility, clergy, and his
corporate magistracy ; not that I suppose he meant
wholly to eradicate these bodies, in the manner since
effected by the democratic power ; I rather believe
that even Necker's designs did not go to that extent.
With his own hand, however, Louis XVI. pulled down
the pillars which upheld his throne ; and this he did,
because he could not bear the inconveniences which
are attached to everything human ; because he found
himself cooped up, and in durance, by those limits
which nature prescribes to desire and imagination ;
and was taught to consider as low and degrading that
mutual dependence which Providence has ordained
that all men should have on one another. He is not
at this minute perhaps cured of the dread of the power
and credit likely to be acquired by those who would
save and rescue him. He leaves those who suffer in
his cause to their fate ; and hopes, by various, mean,
delusive intrigues, in which I am afraid he is encouraged
from abroad, to regain, among traitors and regicides,
the power he has joined to take from his own family,
whom he quietly sees proscribed before his eyes, and

364 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

called to answer to the lowest of his rebels, as the vilest
of all criminals.

It is to be hoped that the emperor may be taught
better things by this fatal example. But it is sure
that he has advisers who endeavour to fill him with the
ideas which have brought his brother-in-law to his
present situation. Joseph II. was far gone in this
philosophy, and some, if not most, who serve the
emperor, would kindly initiate him into all the mys-
teries of this freemasonry. They would persuade him
to look on the National Assembly, not with the hatred
of an enemy, but with the jealousy of a rival. They
would make him desirous of doing, in his own domi-
nions, by a royal despotism, what has been done in
France by a democratic. Rather than abandon such
enterprises, they would persuade him to a strange
alliance between those extremes. Their grand object
being now, as in his brother's time, at any rate to
destroy the higher orders, they think he cannot compass
this end, as certainly he cannot, without elevating the
lower. By depressing the one and by raising the other,
they hope in the first place to increase his treasures
and his army ; and with these common instruments
of royal power they flatter him that the democracy
which they help, in his name, to create, will give him
but little trouble. In defiance of the freshest expe-
rience, which might show him that old impossibilities
are become modern probabilities, and that the extent
to which evil principles may go, when left to their own
operation, is beyond the power of calculation, they will
endeavour to persuade him that such a democracy is
a thing which cannot subsist by itself ; that in whose
hands soever the military command is placed, he must
be, in the necessary course of affairs, sooner or later the
master ; and that, being the master of various uncon-
nected countries, he may keep them all in order by
employing a military force, which to each of them is
foreign. This maxim too, however formerly plausible,
will not now hold water. This scheme is full of intricacy
and may cause him everywhere to lose the hearts of

CONDUCT OF THE EMPEROR 365

his people. These counsellors forget that a corrupted
army was the very cause of the ruin of his brother-in-
law ; and that he is himself far from secure from a
similar corruption.

Instead of reconciling himself heartily and bond fide,
according to the most obvious rules of policy, to the
states of Brabant as they are constituted, and who in
the present state of things stand on the same foundation
with the monarchy itself, and who might have been
gained with the greatest facility, they have advised
him to the most unkmgly proceeding which, either in
a good or in a bad light, has ever been attempted.
Under a pretext taken from the spirit of the lowest
chicane, they have counselled him wholly to break the
public faith, to annul the amnesty, as well as the other
conditions through which he obtained an entrance into
the provinces of the Netherlands, under the guarantee
of Great Britain and Prussia. He is made to declare
his adherence to the indemnity in a criminal sense, but
he is to keep alive in his own name, and to encourage
in others, a civil process in the nature of an action of
damages for what has been suffered during the troubles.
Whilst he keeps up this hopeful law-suit in view of the
damages he may recover against individuals, he loses
the hearts of a whole people, and the vast subsidies
which his ancestors had been used to receive from
them.

This design once admitted, unriddles the mystery of
the whole conduct of the emperor's ministers with
regard to France. As soon as they saw the life of the
King and Queen of France no longer as they thought
in danger, they entirely changed their plan with regard
to the French nation. I believe that the chiefs of the
revolution (those who led the constituting assembly)
have contrived, as far as they can do it, to give the
emperor satisfaction on this head. He keeps a con-
tinual tone and posture of menace to secure this his
only point. But it must be observed that he all along
grounds his departure from the engagement at Pilnitz
to the princes, on the will and actions of the king and

366 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

the majority of the people, without any regard to the
natural and constitutional orders of the state, or to the
opinions of the whole house of Bourbon. Though it is
manifestly under the constraint of imprisonment and
the fear of death, that this unhappy man has been
guilty of all those humilities which have astonished
mankind, the advisers of the emperor will consider
nothing but the physical person of Louis, which, even
in his present degraded and infamous state, they regard
as of sufficient authority to give a complete sanction
to the persecution and utter ruin of all his family, and
of every person who has shown any degree of attach-
ment or fidelity to him, or to his cause ; as well as
competent to destroy the whole ancient constitution
and frame of the French monarchy.

The present policy, therefore, of the Austrian poli-
ticians is to recover despotism through democracy ;
or, at least, at any expense, everywhere to ruin the
description of men who are everywhere the objects of
their settled and systematic aversion, but more especially
in the Netherlands. Compare this with the emperor's
refusing at first all intercourse with the present powers
in France, with his endeavouring to excite all Europe
against them, and then, his not only withdrawing all
assistance and all countenance from the fugitives who
had been drawn by his declarations from their houses,
situations, and military commissions, many even from
the means of their very existence, but treating them
with every species of insult and outrage.

Combining this unexampled conduct in the emperor's
advisers, with the timidity (operating as perfidy) of the
King of France, a fatal example is held out to all
subjects, tending to show what little support, or even
countenance, they are to expect from those for whom
their principle of fidelity may induce them to risk life
and fortune. The emperor's advisers would not for
the world rescind one of the acts of this or of the late
French assembly ; nor do they wish anything better
at present for their master's brother of France, than
that he should really be, as he is nominally, at the head

STATE OF GENERAL ROTTENNESS 367

of the system of persecution of religion and good order,
and of all descriptions of dignity, natural and instituted;
they only wish all this done with a little more respect
to the king's person, and with more appearance of con-
sideration for his new subordinate office ; in hopes,
that, yielding himself, for the present, to the persons
who have effected these changes, he may be able to
game for the rest hereafter. On no other principles
than these, can the conduct of the court of Vienna be
accounted for. The subordinate court of Brussels talks
the language of a club of Feuillans and Jacobins.

In this state of general rottenness among subjects,
and of delusion and false politics in princes, comes
a new experiment. The King of France is in the
hands of the chiefs of the regicide faction, the Barnaves,
Lameths, Fayettes, Perigords, Duports, Robespierres,
C'amus's, &c. &c. &c. They who had imprisoned,
suspended, and conditionally deposed him, are his
confidential counsellors. The next desperate of the
desperate rebels call themselves the moderate party.
They are the chiefs of the first assembly, who are con-
federated to support their power during their suspen-
sion from the present, and to govern the existent body
with as sovereign a sway as they had done the last.
They have, for the greater part, succeeded ; and they
have many advantages towards procuring their success
in future. Just before the close of their regular power,
they bestowed some appearance of prerogatives on the
king, which in their first plans they had refused to
him ; particularly the mischievous, and, in his situa-
tion, dreadful prerogative of a veto. This prerogative,
(which they hold as their bit in the mouth of the
National Assembly for the time being,) without the
direct assistance of their club, it was impossible for
the king to show even the desire of exerting with the
smallest effect, or even with safety to his person.
However, by playing through this veto, the assembly
against the king, and the king against the assembly,
they have made themselves masters of both. In this
situation, having destroyed the old government by

368 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

their sedition, they would preserve as much of order
as is necessary for the support of their own usurpation.
It is believed that this, by far the worst party of the
miscreants of France, has received direct encourage-
ment from the counsellors who betray the emperor.
Thus strengthened by the possession of the captive
king (now captive in his mind as well as in body) and
by a good hope of the emperor, they intend to send
their ministers to every court in Europe ; having sent be-
fore them such a denunciation of terror and superiority
to every nation without exception, as has no example
in the diplomatic world. Hitherto the ministers to
foreign courts had been of the appointment of the
sovereign of France previous to the revolution ; and,
either from inclination, duty or decorum, most of them
were contented with a merely passive obedience to the
new power. At present, the king, being entirely in
the hands of his jailors, and his mind broken to his
situation, can send none but the enthusiasts of the
system — men framed by the secret committee of the
Feuillans, who meet in the house of Madame de Stael,
M. Necker's daughter. Such is every man whom they
have talked of sending hither. These ministers will
be so many spies and incendiaries ; so many active
emissaries of democracy. Their houses will become
places of rendezvous here, as everywhere else, and
centres of cabal for whatever is mischievous and
malignant in this country, particularly among those
of rank and fashion. As the minister of the National
Assembly will be admitted at this court, at least with
his usual rank, and as entertainments will be naturally
given and received by the king's own ministers, any
attempt to discountenance the resort of other people
to that minister would be ineffectual, and indeed
absurd, and full of contradiction. The women who
come with these ambassadors will assist in fomenting
factions amongst ours, which cannot fail of extending
the evil. Some of them I hear are already arrived.
There is no doubt they will do as much mischief a&
they can.

ANGLO-GALLIC CLUBS 369

Whilst the public ministers are received under the
general law of the communication between nations,
the correspondences between the factious clubs in
France and ours will be, as they now are, kept up ; but
this pretended embassy will be a closer, more steady,
and more effectual link between the partisans of the
new system on both sides of the water. I do not mean
that these .Anglo-Gallic clubs in London, Manchester,
&c., are not dangerous in a high degree. The appoint-
ment of festive anniversaries has ever in the sense of
mankind been held the best method of keeping alive
the spirit of any institution. We have one settled in
London ; and at the last of them, that of the 14th of
July, the strong discountenance of government, the
unfavourable time of the year, and the then uncertainty
of the disposition of foreign powers, did not hinder the
meeting of at least nine hundred people, with good
coats on their backs, who could afford to pay half
a guinea a head to show their zeal for the new prin-
ciples. They were with great difficulty, and all possible
address, hindered from inviting the French ambassador.
His real indisposition, besides the fear of offending any
party, sent him out of town, But when our court shall
have recognized a government in France, founded on
the principles announced in Montmorin's letter, how
can the French ambassador be frowned upon for an
attendance on those meetings, wherein the establish-
ment of the government he represents is celebrated ?
An event happened a few days ago, which in many
particulars was very ridiculous ; yet, even from the
ridicule and absurdity of the proceedings, it marks the
more strongly the spirit of the French assembly. I
mean the reception they have given to the Frith-street
alliance. This, though the delirium of a low, drunken
alehouse club, they have publicly announced as a
formal alliance with the people of England, as such
ordered it to be presented to their king, and to be
published in every province in France. This leads
more directly, and with much greater force, than any
proceeding with a regular and rational appearance,

BURKE. IV B b

370 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

to two very material considerations. First, it shows
that they are of opinion that the current opinions of
the English have the greatest influence on the minds
of the people in France, and indeed of all the people in
Europe, since they catch with such astonishing eager-
ness at every the most trifling show of such opinions
in their favour. Next, and what appears to me to be
full as important, it shows that they are willing publicly
to countenance, and even to adopt every factious con-
spiracy that can be formed in this nation, however
low and base in itself, in order to excite in the most
miserable wretches here an idea of their own sovereign
importance, and to encourage them to look up to
France, whenever they may be matured into something
of more force, for assistance in the subversion of their
domestic government. This address of the alehouse
club was actually proposed and accepted by the assem-
bly as an alliance. The procedure was in my opinion
a high misdemeanor in those who acted thus in England,
if they were not so very low and so very base, that no
acts of theirs can be called high, even as a description
of criminality ; and the assembly, in accepting, pro-
claiming, and publishing this forged alliance, has been
guilty of a plain aggression, which would justify our
court in demanding a direct disavowal, if our policy
should not lead us to wink at it.

Whilst I look over this paper to have it copied, I see
a manifesto of the assembly, as a preliminary to a de-
claration of war against the German princes on the
Rhine: This manifesto contains the whole substance
of the French politics with regard to foreign states.
They have ordered it to be circulated amongst the
people in every country of Europe — even previously to
its acceptance by the king, and his new privy council,
the club of the Feuillans. Therefore, as a summary of
their policy avowed by themselves, let us consider some
of the circumstances attending that piece, as well as
the spirit and temper of the piece itself.

It was preceded by a speech from Brissot, full of un-
exampled insolence towards all the sovereign states of

BRISSOT— NEWS-WRITER 371

Germany, if not of Europe. The assembly, to express
their satisfaction in the sentiments which it contained,
ordered it to be printed. This Brissot had been in the
lowest and basest employ under the deposed monarchy ;
a sort of thieftaker, or spy of police ; in which character
he acted after the manner of persons in that description.
He had been employed by his master, the lieutenant de
police, for a considerable time in London, in the same
or some such honourable occupation. The revolution,
which has brought forward all merit of that kind, raised
him, with others of a similar class and disposition, to
fame and eminence. On the revolution he became a
publisher of an infamous newspaper, which he still
continues. He is charged, and I believe justly, as the
h'rst mover of the troubles in Hispaniola. There is no
wickedness, if I am rightly informed, in which he is not
versed, and of which he is not perfectly capable. His
quality of news-writer, now an employment of the first
dignity in France, and his practices and principles,
procured his election into the assembly, where he is
one of the leading members. M. Condorcet produced
on the same day a draft of a declaration to the king,
which the assembly published before it was presented.
Condorcet (though no marquis, as he styled himself
before the revolution) is a man of another sort of birth,
fashion, and occupation from Brissot ; but in every
principle, and every disposition to the lowest as well as
the highest and most determined villanies, fully his
equal. He seconds Brissot in the assembly, and is at
once his coadjutor and his rival in a newspaper, which,
in his own name and as successor to M. Garat, a member
also of the assembly, he has just set up in that empire
of gazettes. Condorcet was chosen to draw the first
declaration presented by the assembly to the king, as
a threat to the Elector of Treves, and the other province
on the Rhine. In that piece, in which both Feuillans
and Jacobins concurred, they declared publicly, and
most proudly and insolently, the principle on which
they mean to proceed in their future disputes with any
of the sovereigns of Europe ; for they say, ' that it is
Bb2

372 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

not with fire and sword they mean to attack their terri-
tories, but by what will be more dreadful to them, the
introduction of liberty.' — I have not the paper by me
to give the exact words — but I believe they are nearly
as I state them. Dreadful, indeed, will be their hos-
tility, if they should be able to carry it on according to
the example of their modes of introducing liberty. They
have shown a perfect model of their whole design, very
complete, though in little. This gang of murderers and
savages have wholly laid waste and utterly ruined the
beautiful and happy country of the Comtat Venaissin
and the city of Avignon. This cruel and treacherous
outrage the sovereigns of Europe, in my opinion, with
a great mistake of their honour and interest, have per-
mitted, even without a remonstrance, to be carried to
the desired point, on the principles on which they are
now themselves threatened in their own states ; and
this, because, according to the poor and narrow spirit
now in fashion, their brother sovereign, whose subjects
have been thus traitorously and inhumanly treated in
violation of the law of nature and of nations, has a name
somewhat different from theirs, and instead of being
styled king, or duke, or landgrave, is usually called
pope.

The Electors of Treves and Mentz were frightened
with the menace of a similar mode of war. The assembly
however, not thinking that the Electors of Treves and
Mentz had done enough under their first terror, have
again brought forward Condorcet, preceded by Brissot,
as I have just stated. The declaration, which they
have ordered now to be circulated in all countries, is in
substance the same as the first, but still more insolent,
because more full of detail. There they have the impu-
dence to state that they aim at no conquest ; insinuat-
ing that all the old, lawful powers of the world had each
made a constant, open profession of a design of subduing
his neighbours. They add, that if they are provoked,
their war will be directed only against those who as-
sume to be masters. But to the people they will bring
peace, law, liberty, &c. &c. There is not the least hint

THE STATE OF FRANCE 373

that they consider those whom they call persons ' assum-
ing to be masters? to be the lawful government of their
country, or persons to be treated with the least manage-
ment or respect. They regard them as usurpers and
enslavers of the people. If I do not mistake they are
described by the name of tyrants in Condorcet's first
draft. I am sure they are so in Brissot's speech,
ordered by the assembly to be printed at the same time
and for the same purposes. The whole is in the same
strain, full of false philosophy and false rhetoric, both,
however, calculated to captivate and influence the vulgar
mind, and to excite sedition in the countries in which
it is ordered to be circulated. Indeed it is such that, if
any of the lawful, acknowledged sovereigns of Europe
had publicly ordered such a manifesto to be circulated
in the dominions of another, the ambassador of that
power would instantly be ordered to quit every court
without an audience.

The powers of Europe have a pretext for concealing
their fears, by saying that this language is not used by
the king ; though they well know that there is in effect
no such person, that the assembly is in reality, and by
that king is acknowledged to be, the master ; that what
he does is but matter of formality, and that he can
neither cause nor hinder, accelerate nor retard, any
measure whatsoever, nor add to, nor soften the mani-
festo which the assembly has directed to be published,
with the declared purpose of exciting mutiny and re-
bellion in the several countries governed by these
powers. By the generality also of the menaces con-
tained in this paper (though infinitely aggravating the
outrage), they hope to remove from each power separ-
ately the idea of a distinct affront. The persons first
pointed at by the menace are certainly the princes of
Germany, who harbour the persecuted house of Bourbon
and the nobility of France ; the declaration, however,
is general, and goes to every state with which they may
have a cause of quarrel. But the terror of France has
fallen upon all nations. A few months since all sove-
reigns seemed disposed to unite against her, at present

374 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS

they all seem to combine in her favour. At no period
has the power of France ever appeared with so formi-
dable an aspect. In particular the liberties of the em-
pire can have nothing more than an existence the most
tottering and precarious, whilst France exists with a
great power of fomenting rebellion, and the greatest in
the weakest ; but with neither power nor disposition
to support the smaller states in their independence
against the attempts of the more powerful.

I wind up all in a full conviction within my own
breast, and the substance of which I must repeat over
and over again, that the state of France is the first
consideration in the politics of Europe, and of each state,
externally as well as internally considered.

Most of the topics I have used are drawn from fear
and apprehension. Topics derived from fear or ad-
dressed to it are, I well know, of doubtful appearance.
To be sure, hope is in general the incitement to action.
Alarm some men — you do not drive them to provide
for their security ; you put them to a stand ; you in-
duce them, not to take measures to prevent the ap-
proach of danger, but to remove so unpleasant an idea
from their minds ; you persuade them to remain as they
are, from a new fear that their activity may bring on
the apprehended mischief before its time. I confess
freely that this evil sometimes happens from an over-
done precaution ; but it is when the measures are rash,
ill chosen, or ill combined, and the effects rather of
blind terror than of enlightened foresight. But the
few to whom I wish to submit my thoughts are of a
character which will enable them to see danger without
astonishment, and to provide against it without per-
plexity.

To what lengths this method of circulating mutinous
manifestoes, and of keeping emissaries of sedition in
every court under the name of ambassadors, to pro-
pagate the same principles and to follow the practices,
will go, and how soon they will operate, it is hard to say
— but go on it will — more or less rapidly, according to
events, and to the humour of the time. The princes

MENACE TO EUROPEAN POLITICS 375

menaced with the revolt of their subjects, at the same
time that they have obsequiously obeyed the sovereign
mandate of the new Roman senate, have received with
distinction, in a public character, ambassadors from
those who in the same act had circulated the manifesto
of sedition in their dominions. This was the only thing
wanting to the degradation and disgrace of the Ger-
manic body.

The ambassadors from the rights of man, and their
admission into the diplomatic system, I hold to be a
new era in this business. It will be the most important
step yet taken to affect the existence of sovereigns, and
the higher classes of life — I do not mean to exclude its
effects upon all classes — but the first blow is aimed at
the more prominent parts in the ancient order of things.

What is to be done ?

It would be presumption in me to do more than to
make a case. Many things occur. But as they, like
all political measures, depend on dispositions, tempers,
means, and external circumstances, for all their effect,
not being well assured of these, I do not know how to
let loose any speculations of mine on the subject. The
evil is stated, in my opinion, as it exists. The remedy
must be where power, wisdom, and information, I hope,
are more united with good intentions than they can be
with me. I have done with this subject, I believe, for
ever. It has given me many anxious moments for the
two last years. If a great change is to be made in
human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it ;
the general opinions and feelings will draw that way.
Every fear, every hope, will forward it ; and then they,
who persist in opposing this mighty current in human
affairs, will appear rather to resist the decrees of Pro-
vidence itself, than the mere designs of men. They
will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and ob-
stinate.

END OF VOL. IV.

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